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TIFFANY NAIL: So what happens just after liftoff? Just how does the MRO spacecraft get from Earth to Mars? Dr. Richard Zurek, MRO project scientist, takes a closer look with this fascinating animation. ZUREK: This August is an opportunity to launch a spacecraft to Mars. These opportunities come every 26 months, and in August we'll be launching the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the latest in a series of spacecraft that we've sent to Mars as part of an exploration of the planet, with a follow-the-water theme. The next step in our journey to Mars will start from Florida. Here you see the Atlas V rocket lifting off with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at the top, inside of the fairing that covers it and protects it during the launch. As it goes up from the Cape Canaveral launch site, the first stage is taking us through the atmosphere, up into the upper reaches. There you see the rocket up at the top, it's covered in the shroud. The first stage separates and falls away, and the second stage will then take over. But first we jettison the fairing, and you can see the high-gain antenna which sits at the top of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. Eventually, we separate from the boosters. The Centaur turns and fires away so that it won't continue on to Mars. We only want the spacecraft, not the booster, to go on to the Red Planet. Early in its cruise phase, we deploy the solar arrays. That's to help us get the batteries charged up and to keep them charged. It also is the configuration in which we fly to the rest of the planet. Here you see the high-gain antenna deployed, and this is the final deployment. And in this configuration, we then cruise out towards Mars. That journey takes about seven months, from August to March of 2006. And once we get to the Red Planet, we'll have to turn around, use our rocket motors to break into orbit around the planet. But during this cruise phase, it's a very busy time. We do a series of course maneuvers that correct the orbit to make sure we get through at the right time. And in fact, we actually fly in front of the planet and the planet catches up with us. As we go into orbit around it, we fire the six thrusters that are the main engine of the spacecraft, and this is the view as if you were approaching Mars. We come in and Mars catches up to us. We pass under the south pole, and we go into a very elliptical orbit. If we had a spacecraft out called 'Spy Mars' and could watch the approach of the spacecraft, then what we would see is the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter coming in, firing its rocket engines, this is a 20-minute burn, which is the longest burn since the launch for our spacecraft, and the last part of it actually happens out of sight on the far side of the planet. Here you see that we go into an elliptical orbit, that's what the thrusters put us into. And then we dip into the atmosphere on each of 500 orbits. As we dip into the atmosphere, the friction causes us to lose energy and so the farthest point moves in closer and closer to the planet. Initially, that orbit is 35 hours long, but eventually it will get down to a two-hour, polar orbit, fixed at the right local time for us to do our primary science observations later in the mission. This simulation shows the typical paths of flying into the atmosphere of Mars. The catch is, of course, is to go deep enough to get enough drag to slow you down, and not to go too deep so that you overheat and damage components of the spacecraft. And this we do 500 times in preparation for getting into that final orbit where we will then conduct a two-year science mission.