Mars Orbiter Sends Back Tests Images

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter sent back its first images of the Red Planet’s surface on Friday -- high-altitude test shots that scientists say are as good as any orbital images previously returned to Earth.

One image covers an area in Mars’ mid-latitude southern highlands about 1.6 miles long and 1.3 miles wide. The smallest objects visible in the image are about 27 feet across, a much lower resolution than will be obtained when the satellite reaches its final orbit.

The picture was taken from 1,547 miles above the Martian surface. The satellite’s final altitude will be 174 miles, allowing it to record objects as small as 3 feet across.

The craft, launched in August, went into orbit around Mars on March 10. Since then, it has been in a highly elliptical 35-hour orbit that carries it from an altitude of 264 miles at its nearest point to a maximum of 27,000 miles from the surface.

In about a week, mission engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge will begin aerobraking maneuvers, in which the craft will dip into the Martian atmosphere to be slowed by atmospheric friction. Over the next seven months, it will dip into the atmosphere about 550 times to achieve its final circular orbit.