Mars Global Surveyor Ready for Extended Mission

Posted by tourdemars to Mars Global Surveyor at December 13, 2000 12:00 PM

NASA has given a thumbs-up for an extension of the Mars Global Surveyor’s (MGS) mission to study the Red Planet until April 2002. Doing so enables scientists to zoom in on prospective touchdown zones for future robotic landers. MGS is to end a nominal assignment of mapping the planet from orbit for one Martian year on February 1, 2001. Mars takes 687 Earth days to travel around the Sun, making a Martian year almost two Earth years long. Cost of putting the MGS on an extended mission is $16.2 million.