MGS animation sequences.

On September 11, 1997, the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft arrived at Mars. MGS is the 2nd in a series of probes bound for the Red Planet. Right after arriving, MGS initiated a 22 minute long Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) burn, which slowed it down and allowed it to be captured into orbit around mars. This orbit was highly elliptical, and each orbit will take about 48 hours to complete. To lower the eccentricity of the orbit, and thus the time it takes to complete each orbit, MGS will enter the aerobraking phase, which will involve dipping slightly into the Martian atmosphere with each consecutive orbit, thus applying resistance to the probe and slowing it down. Each pass will also cause the probe to loose altitude, until finally the probe will be in a circular orbit around mars. Each of these circular orbits will take 3 hours to complete. The aerobraking phase will last about four months. These animation sequences illustrate the MOI and aerobraking phases.

These animations were recently featured on local and national news broadcasts including MSNBC, and CNN.

They are also currently being shown at Kennedy Space Center.

Renderings from these animations can also be found in the National Geographic book, Uncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet Mars by Paul Reaburn and Matt Golombek.

Here's MGS in its aerobraking configuration.




Here are four quicktime movies taken from news broadcasts: