NASA Mars Orbiters Unharmed During Sunday Afternoon’s Comet Flyby

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter were all in good shape following comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring’s flyby of the Red Planet on Sunday, officials at NASA’s Jet Propulsion’s Laboratory (JPL) have confirmed.
Each of the orbiters had performed a “duck and cover” maneuver to take shelter behind the planet and avoid a period of potential risk due to dust from the tail of the comet, JPL explained. Siding Spring passed within 87,000 miles of Mars at approximately 2:27pm EDT on Sunday afternoon in the closest such flyby in recorded history.
All three orbiters, as well as the Mars rovers and other NASA spacecraft, observed and analyzed the comet as it passed by. Comet C/2013 A1 was discovered in January 2013 and is believed to have originated from the Oort Cloud. Scientists have previously stated they believe the data collected Sunday could provide new insights into the earliest days of the solar system more than four billion years ago.
Due to its evasive maneuvers, Mars Odyssey was unable to communicate during Sunday’s flyby, but was able to conduct planned observations of Siding Spring “within hours of the comet’s closest approach to Mars,” said Odyssey Mission Manager Chris Potts of JPL. Odyssey used its Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) to capture images that will be processed over the next few days.
THEMIS was also scheduled to record a combined image of the comet and a portion of Mars later on this week, officials at the Pasadena-based facility noted. Odyssey is also using its Neutron Spectrometer and High Energy Neutron detector to determine if the comet’s gas and dust had an impact on the atmosphere of the Red Planet.
MAVEN, the newest orbiter, only arrived at Mars on September 21 and still must undergo a few weeks of instrument calibration and orbit fine-tuning before its primary science phase begins. Nonetheless, it was able to collect observations designed to provide information about the composition of the dust and gases being released by C/2013 A1 during its pass-by, JPL reported.
Finally, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was able to maintain radio communications with Earth throughout Siding Spring’s closest approach and “performed flawlessly throughout the comet flyby,” said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Manager Dan Johnston of JPL. “It maneuvered for the planned observations of the comet and emerged unscathed.”
NASA officials noted that the downlink of data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s three instruments, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), the Compact Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), and the Context Camera (CTX), was already underway and was expected to take at least a few days.
Like MAVEN, three other instruments on the orbiter, the Mars Climate Sounder (MCS), the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) and the Mars Shallow Radar (SHARAD), were studying the possible impact of the flyby on the planet’s atmosphere. Other objective of NASA’s observing program include capturing an image of the comet’s nucleus and studying its surrounding coma of gas and dust, and observations are expected to continue for another day or so.

Related Reading:
> Oort Cloud – Solar System Reference Library
> WATCH – ScienceCasts: Colliding Atmospheres – Mars Vs Comet Siding Spring
> NASA’s MAVEN Mission Gives Us Its First Glimpse Of The Martian Atmosphere
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May we suggest – The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must by Robert Zubrin. Unlike the dead world of the Moon, the Martian landscape is filled with possibility, but humans must be able to survive there. In the grand tradition of successful explorers, Zubrin calls for a travel-light and live-off-the-land approach to Martian settlement.
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