Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Global Surveyor

Artist's conception of Mars Global Surveyor
Mission type	Mars orbiter
Operator	NASA / JPL
COSPAR ID	1996-062A
Website	mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/
Mission duration	9 years, 11 months, 26 days from launch 9 years, 1 month, 21 days (3249 sols) at Mars En route: 10 months, 5 days Aerobraking: 18 months, 20 days (552 sols) Primary mission: 1 year, 9 months, 30 days (651 sols) Extended missions:  First: 1 year (355 sols)  Second: 11 months (326 sols) Relay missions:  First: 3 years, 9 months (1,332 sols)  Second: 33 days (32 sols)
Spacecraft properties
Launch mass	1,030.5 kg (2,272 lb)
Power	980 watts
Start of mission
Launch date	7 November 1996, 17:00 (1996-11-07UTC17Z) UTC
Rocket	Delta II 7925
Launch site	Cape Canaveral LC-17A
Contractor	Boeing IDS
End of mission
Last contact	November 2, 2006 (2006-11-03)
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Areocentric
Eccentricity	0.7126
Periareion	171.4 km (106.5 mi)
Apoareion	17,836 km (11,083 mi)
Inclination	93 degrees
Period	11.64 hours
Epoch	November 2, 2006
Mars orbiter
Orbital insertion	12 September 1997, 01:17 UTC MSD 43972 16:29 AMT

Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was an American robotic spacecraft developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. Mars Global Surveyor was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through the atmosphere to the surface. As part of the larger Mars Exploration Program, Mars Global Surveyor performed monitoring relay for sister orbiters during aerobraking, and it helped Mars rovers and lander missions by identifying potential landing sites and relaying surface telemetry.

It completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2 November 2006, the spacecraft failed to respond to messages and commands. A faint signal was detected three days later which indicated that it had gone into safe mode. Attempts to recontact the spacecraft and resolve the problem failed, and NASA officially ended the mission in January 2007.

Mars Global Surveyor achieved the following science objectives during its primary mission:

Mars Global Surveyor also achieved the following goals of its extended mission:

The Surveyor spacecraft, fabricated at the Lockheed Martin Astronautics plant in Denver, is a rectangular-shaped box with wing-like projections (solar panels) extending from opposite sides. When fully loaded with propellant at the time of launch, the spacecraft weighed 1,060 kg (2,337 lb). Most of Surveyor's mass lies in the box-shaped module occupying the center portion of the spacecraft. This center module is made of two smaller rectangular modules stacked on top of each other, one of which is called the equipment module and holds the spacecraft's electronics, science instruments, and the 1750A mission computer. The other module, called the propulsion module, houses Surveyor's rocket engines and propellant tanks. The Mars Global Surveyor mission cost about $154 million to develop and build and $65 million to launch. Mission operations and data analysis cost approximately $20 million/year.