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Shuttle program update
Space shuttle program manager Bill Parsons, deputy program manager Wayne Hale and integration manager John Casper hold a news conference in Houston on Monday to provide an update on Return to Flight work. (61min 35sec file)
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Shuttle work
This collection of footage illustrates activities underway throughout NASA on the external tank, orbiter in-flight inspection techniques and pre-launch processing work at the Cape. (9min 05sec file)
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This date in history
The Space shuttle Endeavour lifts off at 4:26 a.m. on December 2, 1993 for the daring mission to fix the flawed vision of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. (3min 44sec file)
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Soyuz leaves ISS
The Russian Soyuz TMA-5 spacecraft with the Expedition 10 crew undocks from the International Space Station's Pirs module for the capsule's relocation to another docking port. (2min 19sec file)
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Roll maneuver
After backing away from the space station, the Soyuz capsule performs a roll maneuver for alignment to prepare for linkup with the new docking port. (2min 04sec file)
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Earth views
Spectacular views of the Russian Soyuz capsule flying over the Earth were captured by station cameras during the move between docking ports. (3min 35sec file)
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Successful docking
Expedition 10 returns to the space station with a successful docking to the Zarya control module's Earth-facing docking port, completing the Soyuz relocation. (1min 50sec file)
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ISS view of docking
External television cameras on the International Space Station provide views of the Soyuz's final approach and docking to Zarya. (3min 34sec file)
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Launch of Swift
The Boeing Delta rocket launches from Cape Canaveral carrying the Swift gamma-ray observatory. This extended clip follows the mission through second stage ignition and includes onboard video of the nose cone separation. (5min 45sec file)
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Ultra-sharp camera readied for next Mars orbiter
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA NEWS RELEASE
Posted: December 7, 2004


An artist's concept of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the craft over the red planet. Credit: NASA
 
The camera that will take thousands of the sharpest, most detailed pictures of Mars ever produced from an orbiting spacecraft was delivered this week for installation on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will be launched on Aug. 10, 2005, carrying a payload of six science instruments and a communications relay package to boost the ongoing exploration of the red planet.

The largest science instrument on the spacecraft will be the University of Arizona's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), a 65 kilogram (145 pound) camera with a half-meter (20-inch) diameter primary mirror.

HiRISE has been delivered for installation on the MRO spacecraft at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colo. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., designed, built and tested the $35 million HiRISE camera.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the MRO mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.

HiRISE will produce ultra-sharp photographs over 6 kilometer (3.5 mile) swaths of the martian landscape with a best imaging at 25 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel, said Alfred S. McEwen of the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, principal investigator for HiRISE.

"By combining a fine imaging scale (25 centimeters to 32 centimeters a pixel, or 10 inches to 12.5 inches a pixel) and high signal-to-noise ratio, it is possible to resolve features as small as one meter (about 40 inches) wide, a scale currently well-studied only by landers," McEwen said. "HiRISE will get such views over any selected region of Mars, providing a bridge between orbital remote sensing and landed missions." Mission scientists will combine stereo image pairs to produce detailed maps of the topography and combine images taken with filters to produce false-color images.

HiRISE will study deposits and landforms created by geologic and climatic processes, and it will help scientists assess future Mars mission landing sites.

(The next Mars lander will be NASA's first Scout mission, called "Phoenix," scheduled for launch in 2007. Peter Smith of UA's Lunar and Planetary Lab heads the Phoenix mission, the first mission to Mars being led by an academic institution.)

"Ball Aerospace has done a fantastic job building an instrument that meets our challenging performance requirements," McEwen said. "The HiRISE camera can collect the equivalent of about a thousand megapixel images in just three seconds."

"With the delivery of the HiRISE hardware, team activities now shift to the UA and Lockheed Martin," McEwen said. "We'll do a series of flight-like tests before the spacecraft gets shipped to Kennedy Space Center next spring." In these operational readiness tests, data from the camera on the spacecraft at Lockheed Martin will be sent to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., then to the HiRISE Operations Center (HiROC)on the UA campus in Tucson.

"Rather than data coming down from the Deep Space Network, which will happen once the spacecraft is actually orbiting Mars, we'll command HiRISE as it sits in a clean room at Lockheed Martin," Eric Eliason said.

Eliason manages activities at HiROC, which is located in the Lunar and Planetary Lab's Sonett Building.

A dozen people currently staff HiROC. That number will double when the primary mission begins in 2006. Their tasks include writing command software, planning observations, uplinking commands, downlinking data, processing raw data into useful images and monitoring the instrument, Eliason said.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter scheduled for launch in August 2005 will be captured in Mars orbit by a "Mars orbit insertion" maneuver in March 2006.

Initially, the spacecraft will fly around Mars in a highly elliptical orbit. The orbit will become more circular over the next several months by a technique called "aerobraking." On each of its close swings by Mars in elliptical orbit, the spacecraft is low enough that it skims the surface of Mars' atmosphere, creating drag on the spacecraft. The orbiter's path around the planet becomes more circular on each successive planet flyby.

HiRISE will begin taking photographs when the spacecraft is in a circular orbit, in November 2006. The primary science mission is for two years, or slightly more than a martian year. The orbiter can also serve as a telecommunications relay link for landers launched to Mars in 2007 and 2009. Nominally, the orbiter mission ends Dec. 31, 2010.