Mars Global Surveyor (nonfiction)

Artist's conception of Mars Global Surveyor.

Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was an American robotic spacecraft developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996.

Mars Global Surveyor was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through the atmosphere to the surface. As part of the larger Mars Exploration Program, Mars Global Surveyor performed monitoring relay for sister orbiters during aerobraking, and it helped Mars rovers and lander missions by identifying potential landing sites and relaying surface telemetry.

It completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2 November 2006, the spacecraft failed to respond to messages and commands. A faint signal was detected three days later which indicated that it had gone into safe mode. Attempts to recontact the spacecraft and resolve the problem failed, and NASA officially ended the mission in January 2007.

Fiction cross-reference

• Crimes against astronomical constants
• Gnomon algorithm

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Mars (nonfiction)
• Spacecraft (nonfiction)

External links:

• Mars Global Surveyor @ Wikipedia