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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - At Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility, one of two containers with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) equipment is rolled toward the ramp of the Air Force C-17 cargo plane. The MRO is being moved to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. The MRO was built by Lockheed Martin for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. It is the next major step in Mars exploration and scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in a window opening Aug. 10. The MRO carries six primary instruments: the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, Context Camera, Mars Color Imager, Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, Mars Climate Sounder and Shallow Radar. By 2007, the MRO will begin a series of global mapping, regional survey and targeted observations from a near-polar, low-altitude Mars orbit. It will observe the atmosphere and surface of Mars while probing its shallow subsurface as part of a “follow the water” strategy.