The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is an ongoing mission which launched August 12, 2005. After a 7 month journey to Mars it has been on a continuing search for water by studying the evidence of past water features such as river delta’s, lakebeds and old networks of rivers which have carved up and eroded away the surface of Mars through wind, water and the occasional dust devil which we’ve seen reach up into the atmosphere straining to become a tornado in the occasional Mars video. Though the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s ongoing mission surveying the surface of Mars is its primary mission it serves in another role as a powerful communications and navigation link for many of the science experiments, landers, and other satellites which are currently in service around Mars. With countries from all over the world working in the vicinity of Mars NASA has many partners in national space agencies such as JAXA (Japan), ESA (European Union), DLR (Germany), Roscosmos (Russia) and many other countries working together towards ultimate ends which go far beyond national borders furthering the borders of science by man for mankind.
I’ve put out 4-5 articles on Mars 2020, the Perseverance Rover, the Artemis missions over the last couple of months over at https://azure.zettabytes.org and wanted to put in a quick word about the MRO as it is the essential link orbiting Mars which is Earth’s lifeline to the science being conducted in the Mars vicinity and this shows an excellent example of working together hand in hand to further common goals. Additionally to learn more about the MRO and it’s original mission and all the science it’s accomplished over the years visit https://nasa.gov where you can learn all about NASA missions and spacecraft from the first steps when man was first reaching out to space to the cutting edge of what’s going on right now above our heads. Zettabytes and myself will be following this mission closely so I’ll continue to blog on new happenings, milestones reached and keeping abreast of new and interesting information as it becomes available. The Perseverance Rover on Mars is the mission we’re following the closest right now but it wouldn’t be possible without workhorses like the MRO out there at Mars reliably relaying our science payloads back to Earth. The best and brightest minds of our times will get that data together we will continue our exploration of the real and virtual worlds around us and maybe if we’re lucky somewhere along the road we might just learn a little something about ourselves. 😉
NASA.gov link to Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/main/index.html