MRO

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no_way

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after reading todays article on MRO i was left wondering, why is this craft even being built ? Anyone excited about it for any particular reason ? What can it do that Mars Express isnt already doing ? And why will it take LRO another three or four years to build, although it will have very similar mission and capabilities from what i understand ?
 
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mrmorris

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MRO is going to have a camera that can resolve to 10 inches per pixel as opposed to Mar Express' ~72 inches. Info here. As the SDC article said -- this will be of incredible assistance in picking a spot for the Pheonix lander. Likewise the radar on MRO is capable of a much finer resolution than that of MARSIS on the Mars Express orbiter.<br /><br />In addition -- it's the most capable telecommunications satellite ever sent to another planet. It's going to be the link that allows data from the future probes to be transmitted to Earth at high bandwidths. MRO looks to me mainly to be an enabler for upcoming missions -- to make their landing safer and to enhance the potential data return from them.<br />
 
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becarlson

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According to this article (http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/mro_tech_041013.html)<br /><br /><i>On orbit at Mars, MRO’s data rate link to Earth is astounding: Three times faster than a high-speed residential telephone line. Ten to twenty times more data will be relayed from MRO than previous Mars missions - more data than all prior planetary missions combined.<br /><br />"We are like 15 DSLs (digital subscriber lines). So we’re talking about an incredible transmission rate of information coming down," McNeill pointed out.</i> <br /><br />And this article (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=MARSRECON) mentions:<br /><br /><i>Two transponders and three traveling wave tube amplifiers allow maximum data rates of 6 megabits/sec.</i>
 
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yurkin

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Even more impressive then the spatial resolution is the spectral resolution.<br /><br />Mr. O takes pictures in almost the complete visible spectrum. This is orders of magnitude better then the very specific blue, green and red spectrum that Express sees in. <br />No more of the artistic “like true color” images that ESA likes to put out.
 
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mikejz

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WOW! That is enought bandwidth for live tv. I remember Magellen used a dish that was a spare from Voyager and that it had something like 400-500kbps. Amazing. <br /><br />Makes you wounder what need that Telecom orbiter will be needed for......<br /><br />Also, why do Mars missions always have that cover over the HGA?
 
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becarlson

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The cover might allow for more even heating of the dish surface. A part of the dish surface being slightly warmer than the rest might affect signal attenuation. Just a guess though.
 
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centsworth_II

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I, personally am looking forward to this,<br />from the side bar to the article:<br /><br /><i>"The orbiter's shallow radar experiment [will]... probe the internal structure of Mars' polar ice caps [and]... underground layers of ice, rock and, perhaps, liquid water that might be accessible from the surface."</i><br /><br />Also, I've seen many debates over what the details of a particular image reveal: water flow, dust flow, dunes... giant sand worms. Hopefully the added resolution of the MRO will settle some of these debates. (I'm betting on an end to the giant sand worm... possibly to be replaced by a more moderate-sized sand worm, just below the resolving capability of the MRO.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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bushuser

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...and I'm looking forward to radar study of the Martian "lava tubes", or whatever they prove to be. The discovery of caves on Mars could be important to human exploration.
 
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no_way

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So basically, more bandwidth, better resolution everything as usual, but nothing fundamentally new.<br />Im really glad that we are going to see martian surface in 8x better resolution than before ..
 
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sky5000

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We need a camera with 10 inch pixel resolution to find out what happened to Beagle-2!!<br /><br />More serious replys - yes very high resolution mapping with 21st century electronics & sensors, and a very fast high-bandwidth transmission channel for future landings.. The current NASA orbiters have been there a long time, and will eventually run out of propellant & die. <br />
 
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centsworth_II

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Don't forget MRO will be looking for water deep beneath the surface. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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mrmorris

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<font color="yellow">"deep beneath the surface. "</font><br /><br />Well -- depends on how deep you mean. The radar on MRO has a relatively shallow penetration but high-resolution. The MARSIS radar on Mars Express is a deep-penetration-radar, but has a coarser resolution. The two are supposed to complement each other.
 
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centsworth_II

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Up to 1km beneath the surface seems "deep" to me. I hope MARSIS works and <b>does</b> compliment the MRO data. Despite being "high resolution", it seems that any sub-surface water must be a pretty large volume to be seen. <br /><br />SHARAD (Shallow Subsurface Radar)<br /><br />"SHARAD will seek liquid or frozen water in the first few hundreds of feet (up to 1 kilometer) of Mars' crust. <br /><br />"The instrument has a horizontal resolution of between 0.3 and 3 kilometers (between 2/10 of a mile and almost 2 miles) horizontally and 15 meters (about 50 feet) vertically. Subsurface features will have to be of the order of these dimensions for them to be observable."<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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lunatic133

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I'm looking forward to it because my friend is working on it. He worked on MPL and Genesis so I hope for his sake that this one works <img src="/images/icons/crazy.gif" />
 
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radarredux

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> <i><font color="yellow">Don't forget MRO will be looking for water deep beneath the surface.</font>/i><br /><br />Remember one of the early shuttle missions where they found river beds under the Sahara using ground penetrating radar? I look forward to similar results with the use of the current (ESA) and Mr.O radars.</i>
 
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centsworth_II

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<font color="yellow">"...they found river beds under the Sahara..."</font><br /><br />Maybe they'll find the "lost seas" of Meridiani!<img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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xacikhan

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Mars has been an enormous interesting planet for scientist for a long time and they have been doing for mars,This time they have sent an orbitor MRO (Mars Reconnaisance orbitor),So far i know only that after Some time it ll start revolving around mars too close like complete revolution in 2 hours and ll give the most peculiar information and huge interpretaions of the things they have had for previous years.Wts ur idea says and ur information about it all. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Never expect a "16x20" Idea to be celebrated by a "3x5" mind
 
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telfrow

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See this thread. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>
 
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