Posted by tourdemars to Mars Global Surveyor at May 19, 2005 01:03 PM

A NASA spacecraft circling Mars has spied, for the first time, two of its fellow probes orbiting the red planet. Red planet veteran Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) successfully photographed NASA’s Mars Odyssey probe and the European-built Mars Express spacecraft during a series of observations released Thursday. From its polar orbit around Mars, the MGS probe found Mars Express first as the two spacecraft flew over the red planet on April 20. Separated from its orbital target by a distance of 155 miles (249 kilometers), the MGS probed turned its Mars Orbiter Camera lens toward the passing spacecraft to snap the first two images of a red planet orbiter.