Justin from Falmouth. He asked, what will be the MRO's first science mission after achieving orbit around the planet?
Also, he asked, how long will it be before you receive any observations from the MRO when it arrives at Mars?
Okay, well, as we spoke about, when we get to Mars, we spend six months aerobraking. So, during that time, we don't take any data.
And then we go into opposition; that is where the Sun is between Earth and us. We can't actually transmit very much data.
So, we're hoping that we'll be able to take some data fairly soon after aerobraking. So, that should be around November of 2006.
And the first science mission we hope to carry out is to look very carefully at the landing site for an upcoming mission.
It's the Mars Polar Lander. Sorry, not the Mars Polar Lander, wrong spacecraft. But it's going too near the poles.
It's the Phoenix Scout, and it will go to about 70, 75 degrees latitude, and it will be looking for ice in the subsurface.
So, we'll be using our spacecraft to take images and other kinds of data for that landing site,
make sure it looks safe and help them find the best, most scientifically interesting site.