Orbiter's optics

Now that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has slipped into its mapping orbit, it’s getting ready for business. The twin booms of its ground-penetrating radar, provided by the Italian Space Agency and capable of mapping layers of ice, rock, and water to a depth of one kilometer, unfolded to their full five-meter lengths on September 16, and the radar was tested on the 18th. And the high-resolution camera snapped its first mapping-altitude frame, of which this is part, on the 29th. The image scale is 25 centimeters per pixel, so if you were out hiking here, you’d be visible—barely. At E&S’s print resolution of 350 pixels per inch, the entire image is a hair over five feet square. It covers a small portion of the floor of Ius Chasma, part of the Valles Marineris canyon system, and shows scarps of layered bedrock, some faulted and folded, and dunes of windblown sand. The science phase starts in earnest in November, when Mars reemerges from behind the sun.

JPL manages the mission for NASA. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft. The camera was built by Ball Aerospace, and is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson.