Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera

Martian Sampler #2

These Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) pictures and their captions (select images below) illustrate some of the range of martian features and image data obtained by the MOC during the second six-month period that MGS was in its Mapping Orbit, from September 1999 through February 2000. Many of the pictures from this period are in the southern hemisphere and were acquired to monitor the south polar cap as it retreated through the spring season. Others in the south examined the Mars Polar Lander site, both before the landing and afterward in attempts to learn of the Lander's fate. The pictures shown below represent a tiny fraction of the variety of things seen during this portion of the MGS mission; their purpose is to accompany more than 30,000 NEW pictures released this month in the MSSS Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera Gallery. These data have been validated by the MGS MOC Operations Team at Malin Space Science Systems and are being deposited for permanent archive with the NASA Planetary Data System (PDS). The data validation process is important and labor-intensive; new MOC data are submitted to the archive every six months.

Images Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO.

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