http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0325mars0325.html
UA camera gets a close-up look at face of Mars
Mike Cronin The Arizona Republic Mar. 25, 2006 12:00 AM
TUCSON - Mars might as well have been a runway model on Friday.
The Red Planet posed for University of Arizona's HiRISE camera for the first time.
When the photos successfully came through at 1:31 a.m. on Friday, about two dozen UA scientists in the Sonett Space Sciences Building shrieked like teenage girls for a boy band.
Tahirih Motazedian, tears in her eyes, simply repeated, "This is amazing. Oh, my gosh," as British composer Gustav Holst's The Planets played in the background.
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, the most powerful camera ever to leave Earth's orbit, sent back superbly clear images of an area in the planet's southern hemisphere about 559 miles northwest of the center of a plain called the Argyre Planitia.
The camera is one of many instruments affixed to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the spacecraft that reached Martian orbit on March 10. It left Earth on Aug. 12. Friday morning's achievement was crucial because it demonstrated that the camera and the craft are working, said Ingrid Daubar, who helps write commands for HiRISE.
It took scientists about four years to develop the $450 million Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the $42 million HiRISE. The entire mission is costing $720 million.
The orbiter has begun a six-month process of aerobraking, in which the craft repeatedly dips into the planet's atmosphere at progressively smaller, elliptical orbits. That will enable it to slow to 7,800 mph, 190 miles above the Martian surface.
In the next few days, HiRISE will slumber until it arrives at its final orbit. The primary mission will last from this September to December 2008. After that, it will serve as a communications satellite for future missions until the end of 2010.
"We did pretty darn well," said UA's Alfred McEwen, chief scientist for HiRISE, nervously shifting his weight from one leg to the other, minutes after viewing the photos.
"It looked like we hoped and expected it to look."
The success of this mission determines the course of UA's next one: the August 2007 Phoenix Mission, which will be the first NASA mission ever to be run entirely from a university. The orbiter will serve as the communications link for that mission.
During the Phoenix Mission, a craft will land in the northern polar region of Mars in May 2008. The lander will collect data on the planet's water history and sample soils for hints that Mars once was, or still is, suitable for life.
HiRISE and the craft's other instruments will search the surface for water and possible landing sites for future Mars missions, such as Phoenix.
For now, forgive McEwen and his staff for reveling in their accomplishment.
To make the moment more tangible, someone had baked a cake frosted with a congratulatory message and speckled with Martian figurines.
"Not that we expect to find any (Martians)," someone said.