What is the Mars Global Surveyor?

The Mars Global Surveyor Probe launched by the United States on November 7, 1996. After a 10-month flight, it entered orbit around Mars on September 11, 1997, and began an inspection of Mars.

Mars Global Surveyor

On September 11, 1997, the Mars Global Surveyor Rover entered Mars' orbit. The Mars Global Surveyor Probe launched by the United States on November 7, 1996. After a 10-month flight, it entered orbit around Mars on September 11, 1997, and began an inspection of Mars. The Mars Global Surveyor Probe has a mass of 1031 kilograms and contains 7 instruments. It is part of the American Mars Life Plan. Its main mission is to take high-resolution images of the surface of Mars, study its landscape and gravity field, detect the weather and climate of Mars, and analyze the composition of Mars' surface and atmosphere. On September 15, 1997, a magnetometer on the Mars Global Surveyor Detector detected a magnetic field on the surface of Mars with a strength of about 1/800 of the Earth's magnetic field. Images returned from the Mars Global Surveyor Detector returned unexpectedly. Mars was found to have potholes and hills, a storm the size of the South Atlantic, and strong magnetic objects; Mars's crust has more extensive stratification, which at least indicates that Mars has changed in history; Mars has oceanic The ruins have the smoothest surface in the northern hemisphere. The other areas are ancient plateaus, revealing the composition of the Martian geological layer, especially the discovery of traces of water on Mars. On April 6, 1998, NASA announced the Mars Global Surveyor Survey The image taken by the aircraft revealed the mystery that Mars' "face" is just a hill. The Mars Global Surveyor Rover returned tens of thousands of images of Mars, ending its main work in February 2001.

Mars Global Explorer is aboard five scientific instruments:

Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)

Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA)

Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES)

Magnetometer and electron reflectometer (MAG / ER)

USO / RS Ultrastable Oscillator for Doppler measurements

Mars Relay, signal receiver

The Mars orbit camera has a total of three instruments. A narrow field of view camera is responsible for shooting black and white images with higher resolution (1.5-12 m / pixel). A camera that can shoot red and blue images captures background images (resolution 240 m / pixel). ), The third captures daily global images (resolution 7.5 km / pixel). MOC returned more than 240,000 images in 4.8 Mars years, from 1997 to 2006. The width of high-resolution images is about 1.5 or 3.1 kilometers, but in order to show the surface characteristics of some specific areas, most of the images will be smaller. The length of the high-resolution image is about 3 to 10 kilometers. When shooting a high-resolution image, a background image with a lower resolution is also taken at the same time, which is used to indicate the shooting position of the high-resolution image. The background image is generally 115.2 km long and wide with a resolution of 240 m / pixel.

NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) probe is likely to have ended its exploration career. The probe has become the longest and most productive of the probes sent to Mars to date. "The MGS has exceeded all our expectations. It is already one of the most effective Mars exploration missions. And with the continued analysis of its observations in the years to come, It will also produce more discoveries. "

The MGS orbiter has lost communication with Earth since November 2. Initial indications indicate that one of its solar panels is difficult to turn, making it possible that the detector could no longer generate enough power for communication. However, engineers are still exploring other potential causes of this radio silence problem. Li Fu, Manager of the Mars Exploration Program at Jet Lab, said: "To be honest, we have tried the most promising way to restore contact. Now we are facing the possibility that the MGS probe will stop flowing from now on. Send back scientific observations. However, we have not given up hope

NASA will also continue to work to restore contact with the detector and determine the cause of the problem. The agency's latest Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter probe pointed its camera at MGS on November 20. "We have used star trackers, background cameras and high-resolution cameras on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to find MGS. But preliminary analysis of the images taken," said Doug McQuison, director of the Bureau's Mars Exploration Program. Did not show any definite detector images

November 7, 1996: Launch

September 11, 1997: Arrive on Mars and enter orbit

April 1, 1999: Main surveying and mapping mission begins

February 1, 2001: First extended mission begins

February 1, 2002: Second extended mission begins

January 1, 2003: Relay task begins

March 30, 2004: The trajectory of the tire where 85 Mars average solar days passed before Spirit was photographed.

December 1, 2004: Science and support mission begins

April 2005: Mars Global Explorer is the first probe to photograph other space probes on planets other than Earth. MGS took two pictures of the 2001 Mars Odyssey and one picture of the Mars Express.

October 1, 2006: Scheduled two-year extended mission begins.

November 2, 2006: Communication was lost due to a solar panel relocation error.

November 5, 2006: A weak signal was detected, indicating that MGS was waiting for instructions, and the signal was interrupted shortly.

November 21, 2006: NASA announces end of MGS mission

December 6, 2006: NASA released a new ravine image taken by MGS, proving that liquid water still exists on Mars.

April 13, 2007: NASA announces report of MGS loss of contact.