MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER (MRO)

THE SPECS

Launch: 12 August 2005 Launch rocket: Atlas V 401

Target: Mars

Operators: NASA and JPL

Orbital inclination: 93 degrees

Component: Multiple components

Arrival at Mars: 10 March 2006

Mission ends: TBC

Time spent in orbit: 16 years

From the fascination it has provided the field of astronomy with for centuries, to the secrets it has yielded since the first Mars mission in 1960, the Red Planet remains an elusive and esoteric point in the night sky.

Since the early 1960s, the collective space agencies of the world have launched over 50 missions to the distant world the Romans named after their deity of war. One of those missions – NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) – has just completed its tenth year of groundbreaking