Mars Surveyor Fact Sheet, February 1994

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From: sdd@larc.nasa.gov (Steve Derry)
Subject: Mars Surveyor Fact Sheet
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Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA  USA
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Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 20:30:27 GMT
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FACT SHEET
MARS SURVEYOR PROGRAM
Mars Orbiter Spacecraft


The Mars orbiter will be a polar-orbiting spacecraft at Mars whose 
mission is to fulfill the Mars science objectives of the failed Mars 
Observer mission. 

Launched with a Delta II vehicle from Cape Canaveral in November 1996, 
the spacecraft will cruise 10 months to Mars, where it will be initially 
inserted into an elliptical capture orbit.  During the following 4-month 
period, thruster firings and aerobraking techniques will be used to reach 
the nearly circular, polar mapping orbit with a 2-hour period.  Mapping 
operations are planned to begin in late January 1998. 

Aerobraking, which uses atmospheric drag forces on the spacecraft to 
remove orbital energy, provides a means of minimizing the amount of fuel 
required to reach the low Mars orbit.  

The spacecraft will carry a subset of the Mars Observer instrument 
payload and will use these instruments to acquire data of Mars for a full 
Martian year (2 Earth years).  The spacecraft then will be used as a data 
relay station for signals from U.S. and international landers and low 
altitude probes for an additional 3 years.  

The orbiter is the first mission of a new, decade-long program of robotic 
exploration of Mars -- the Mars Surveyor Program.  This will be an 
aggressive series of orbiters and landers to be launched in every Mars 
opportunity.  It will be affordable, costing about $100 million per year;  
engaging to the public, with global and close-up images of Mars; have 
high scientific value; employ a distributed risk strategy so that no 
single element loss will result in the total loss of data planned in a 
given opportunity; and use significant advanced technologies. 

Landers launched in future years -- in 1998 and 2001 -- will capitalize 
on the experiences of the Pathfinder lander mission to be launched in 
1996.  Small orbiters launched in the 1998 and 2001 opportunities will 
carry the remainder of the Mars Observer payload instruments and will 
serve as data relay stations. 

The spacecraft will be acquired from industry through a competitive 
procurement.  The science payload will be provided by government-
furnished equipment built as copies of the instruments that flew on Mars 
Observer.  JPL will manage the project for NASA's Solar System 
Exploration Division and will provide the mission design, navigation and 
will conduct the mission operations.  Tracking and data acquisition will 
be provided by a 34-meter subnet of the Deep Space Network. 


February 1994