That is going to be an extraordinarily tense time for all of us. In fact, we have to wait another 30 minutes until it comes out from behind the planet for us to confirm whether we actually got the burn completed and got captured in orbit. GRAF: The spacecraft will be in view of the Earth for about the first 20 minutes, but then the spacecraft goes behind the planet and we can't see it anymore. Adding to the drama of this highly critical time when the thrusters burn, the reassuring signal from the spacecraft that tells ground controllers everything's okay, will disappear for a while. The final valves are opened just 35 minutes before the thruster burn. Those thrusters are like jet packs to push the spacecraft into orbit around Mars. Then they start opening valves that feed the hydrazine propellant into the thrusters. NARRATOR: About 3 days before Mars orbit insertion, the team will load computer commands sequences. So we can't joystick the spacecraft, we can't be going up and saying do this now and do that now, it has to be autonomous as we approach MOI, and the spacecraft has to make all of its own decisions. GRAF: It takes us about 12 minutes for a signal to leave Earth to get to the spacecraft and another 12 minutes to get it back here. NARRATOR: This Mars orbit insertion, or MOI, might sound like an exciting video game-but this is real life, and real space travel. So on March 10th Mars will be close enough to us as we come right by that it will start sucking the spacecraft down into the gravitational well, we call it, or into the gravity of Mars, and eventually we fire our thrusters, and that slows us down enough so the spacecraft can get captured by Mars. GRAF: We're actually getting a little bit ahead of Mars, and Mars will have to catch up to us. NARRATOR: It's all one huge, tricky, super high-speed engineering maneuver. GRAF: It's a white knuckle period because the spacecraft has to do everything that we planned for it to do at the right time or else we won't fire our thrusters at the right time and we won't be able to get the reduction in our velocity that we're counting on, and that means we will not get into orbit. NARRATOR: No matter how much testing is done, there is nothing like the real deal. To do that we're going to test, test, test on the ground here to make sure that we're ready to go. GRAF: It's a very difficult time as we approach Mars because we've lost several spacecraft in this phase, so we have to be very diligent that we manage to make sure that we get everything done properly and that the spacecraft, the hardware and the software, all performs as we planned. NARRATOR: Zurek's colleague at JPL, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Manager Jim Graf, says the whole team will be on edge during the final days and hours before Mars arrival on March 10. Getting into orbit is very similar in that regard. When we blasted off from the Earth on our launch vehicle and got into space and on our way to Mars, that was a very nervous time, a critical event. We've lost spacecraft before at this juncture. Getting into orbit around Mars has been difficult. ZUREK: The experience has taught us generally and me personally that you're not there till you're there. NATURAL SOUND OF LAUNCH COUNTDOWN, ROCKET SOUNDS But before they can learn anything, a whole lot of things have to go right with the spacecraft as it nears the home stretch of its journey that began with a launch from Cape Canaveral on August 12, 2005. We'll find out more in just a couple of minutes about what Zurek and his colleagues hope to learn about the red planet. NARRATOR: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Scientist Dr. ZUREK: We're trying to understand the climate history of the planet and in doing that we hope to find those best places for future missions and we also hope to build on the past missions, bring all that detail together with new capabilities that this orbiter will take to Mars. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will beam back more data than all previous Mars missions combined, with several goals. Today, we'll find out how the spacecraft will put on the brakes to maneuver itself into the correct orbit, and we'll learn what the mission will tell us about our rocky neighbor. On March 10, they will all have a new teammate - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched August 12, 2005, and now zooming in toward the red planet. And the European Space Agency has its Mars Express orbiter. I'm Jane Platt and you're listening to a podcast from JPL - NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.įour NASA spacecraft are already working fulltime on Mars - the two long-lived rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, and two orbiters, Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey. NARRATOR: Rolling out the red carpet at the red planet.
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