It took just ten month for NASA ’s pee - seeking artificial satellite to traverse the 442 million Admiralty mile between Earth and Mars . And , now that it has successfully entered static electron orbit around the red planet , it ’s time to get to work figuring out where the heck all that water went .
The MAVEN spacecraft wo n’t thump the soil with earth penetrating radar in search of Dihydrogen Monoxide but rather observe the major planet ’s flimsy upper atmosphere for hint . According to a NASA press sack published last Wednesday , remotely inserting a orbiter into field from more than 400 million statute mile aside was not quite as simple as it sounds :
The area - insertion maneuver will begin with the brief firing of six small thruster engine to steady the space vehicle . The engines will ignite and burn down for 33 minutes to slow the craft , allow for it to be pull in into an elliptical arena with a period of 35 hours .
Over the next six weeks , the MAVEN will finalize its orbit , unfurl its instrument , and boot up its analyzers onward of a twelvemonth - recollective mission to study the composition and complex body part of our sister planet ’s atmospheric state . [ NASA ]
https://gizmodo.com/nasas-new-martian-explorer-will-explain-where-all-the-1210538818
MarsMAVENNASAsatellitesSpace
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