NASA turns Mars sniffer into data-relay satellite for rovers

Washington: NASA’s atmosphere-sniffing Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has embarked on a new campaign to tighten its orbit around the red planet to become a data-relay satellite for the US space agency’s Mars 2020 rover. The operation will reduce the highest point of the spacecraft’s elliptical orbit from 6,200 kilometres to 4,500 kilometres above the surface, according to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA engineers will begin lowering the lowest part of the spacecraft’s orbit into the Martian upper atmosphere over the next few days by firing its thrusters. (IANS)

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