Panel Will Study Mars Global Surveyor Events

["NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory" <info@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: NASA JPL news

 

Guy Webster  818-354-6278

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

 

Dwayne Brown  202-358-1726

NASA Headquarters, Washington                                                                               

 

News Release: 2007-004                                                                                 Jan. 10, 2007

 

Panel Will Study Mars Global Surveyor Events

 

NASA has formed an internal review board to look more in-depth into why NASA's Mars Global Surveyor went silent in November 2006 and recommend any processes or procedures that could increase safety for other spacecraft.

 

Mars Global Surveyor launched in 1996 on a mission designed to study Mars from orbit for two years. It accomplished many important discoveries during nine years in orbit. On Nov. 2, the spacecraft transmitted information that one of its arrays was not pivoting as commanded. Loss of signal from the orbiter began on the following orbit.

 

Mars Global Surveyor has operated longer at Mars than any other spacecraft in history and for more than four times as long as the prime mission originally planned.

 

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages Mars Global Surveyor for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.  Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft.

 

Information about the mission is available on the Internet at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mgs/index.html .

 

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