US spacecraft enters Mars orbit, India probe next

NASA's Maven spacecraft entered orbit around Mars for an unprecedented study of the red planet's atmosphere following a 442 million-mile (710 million-kilometer) journey that began nearly a year ago.
The robotic explorer successfully slipped into orbit around the red planet late Sunday night.
"I think my heart's about ready to start again," Maven's chief investigator, Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado, said early Monday. "All I can say at this point is, 'We're in orbit at Mars, guys!'"
Now the real work begins for the USD 671 million mission, the first dedicated to studying the Martian upper atmosphere and the latest step in NASA's bid to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s.

Flight controllers in Colorado will spend the next six weeks adjusting Maven's altitude and checking its science instruments, and observing a comet streaking by at relatively close range. Then in early November, Maven will start probing the upper atmosphere of Mars. The spacecraft will conduct its observations from orbit; it's not meant to land.
Scientists believe the Martian atmosphere holds clues as to how Earth's neighbor went from being warm and wet billions of years ago to cold and dry. That early wet world may have harbored microbial life, a tantalizing question yet to be answered.

Maven joins three spacecraft already circling Mars, two American and one European. And the traffic jam isn't over: India's first interplanetary probe, Mangalyaan, will reach Mars in two days and also aim for orbit. India would become the fourth space program to reach Mars after the Soviet Union, the US and Europe.

Indian officials have said the mission is chiefly a demonstration of technology. The spacecraft's instruments will gather data to help scientists study Martian weather systems and what happened to the ancient water. It will also look for methane, a key chemical in life processes on Earth that could also come from geological processes.
NASA launched Maven last November from Cape Canaveral, the 10th US mission sent to orbit the red planet. Three earlier ones failed, and until the official word came of success late Sunday night, the entire team was on edge.
The spacecraft was clocking more than 10,000 mph (16,000 million kph) when it hit the brakes for the so-called orbital insertion, a half-hour process.

The world had to wait 12 minutes to learn the outcome, once it occurred, because of the lag in spacecraft signals given the 138 million miles (222 million-kilometers) between the two planets Sunday.
"Wow, what a night. You get one shot with Mars orbit insertion, and Maven nailed it tonight," said NASA project manager David Mitchell.