Orbiter Successfully Enters Orbit

dylanduck writes "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has slipped safely into orbit - unlike two of the last four orbiters NASA sent to Mars. Remember Mars Climate Orbiter and the mix up between metric and English units? MRO is going to send back 34 trillion bytes of data, more than all the previous missions put together." From the article: "The spacecraft will use a suite of six instruments, including the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet. This will image objects as small as 1-metre wide and should be able to snap pictures of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. The instruments will track the planet's weather, geology and mineralogy, and even probe about a kilometre beneath its surface to hunt for water."

Re:Just read about it

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for summarizing the summary.

Late Breaking News:

[Spy der Mann]

Today a mysterious object began appearing in our sky. The population panicked after they heard rumors saying that the object came from the evil blue planet. To calm the population, K'Breel, speaker for the council of Elders, said:

We are not to worry. Let us remember that our cloaking technology will keep
us safe from being noticed by the inhabitants of the evil blue planet. Our scientists are studying the artificial satellite and have concluded that it is a very primitive technology. We are not to fear.

Besides, our plan to destroy the evil blue planet have not been hindered in any way.

When someone asked why this satellite couldn't be destroyed as the other two alien satellites that were sent by the blue planet inhabitants, K'Breel ordered the traitor's immediate execution. This was the first case of someone being executed for stripping the word "evil" from the phrase "evil blue planet", according to the new law.

(My apologies to TripMaster Monkey)

ONE TRILLION DOLLARS!!!!

[Kittie Rose]

Man, that's a lot of data to be sending back. I just hope those funny little Green Men aren't going to be using up all the space bandwidth looking at porn from Uranus.

Re:trillion?

[NitsujTPU]

Actually, I don't think that it's so much that it's actually ambiguous as it is that people are willing to nod to some imbiguity to keep their corporate funding sources out of hot water. Simple fact, a megabyte is 1024k, and a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, and a byte is 8 bits. Any other definition only allows you to pass of cheap hardware as if it were a more expensive counterpart.

Four out of five ain't bad ...

[eck011219]

Well, shoot - I guess you can't hit Mars EVERY time you shoot something at it ... still, an 80% strike rate is pretty good for wartime.

Re:trillion?

[jandrese]

Hey, at least it's a real unit. They could have reported it in Libraries of Congress or some other useless unit.

Re:Not English

[Decaff]

I went to an English "Public School" and am now over 40. I only know my weight in kilogrammes. We went metric a long time ago!

If only we had. There are miles to go yet before we have fully.....

Love the title

[rholliday]

Orbiter enters orbit.

In other news Voyager has gone on a voyage, Mariner has ... marinated ... okay, the joke's falling apart now.

The fallback mission.

[expro]

and even probe about a kilometre beneath its surface to hunt for water

This was the fallback mission in case it deorbited by mistake.

Re:Late Breaking News:

[node 3]

(My apologies to TripMaster Monkey)

Don't worry, he still owes us an apology for his sig.

Sprint Carrier-Pigeon Internet Service

[illumynite]

Hey hey, big generalization there pal.

I, for one, enjoy the relative safety and comfort of my fine tree. I am at a sufficient altitude to avoid the dangers that you "land-lubbers" deal with everyday. I'm shaded from... well, some of the harmful UV rays that you terra-firma-loving peeps drive your cars around on that spew out ozone-depleting compounds. I have fresh air to breathe, and best of all, those SEC officials will never find me out here!

Of course there are some downsides

• My solar-cell charged batteries die in the middle of the night
• Mosquito's in the summer
• Chicks don't dig dudes in trees. :( Maybe I need some tree-bling?
• No phone, ergo, no DSL. My beloved conifer is 264,000' from the CO. I'm connected via Sprint Carrier-Pigeon.

And you guys complain about the slow 300 baud acoustic-coupled modems back in th.... WHAT THE?!?!

HOLY HELL, there's a goddamn hunter aiming at my carrier pige *BOOM*

NO CARRIER

Re:Love the title

[Winlin]

And Magellan is gellin' like a felon. Please forgive me.

Re:trillion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you believe that they are going to send back exactly '34 trillion bytes of data'. What, does it blow up after sending '34 trillion bytes of data'.? Maybe some common sense wouldn't go amiss. Obviously it is an approximation, so who give 2 shits whether each kilobyte has 1024 or 1000 bytes in it.

Great headline

[.com b4 .storm]

Thanks for the great headline, Zonk. In other news...

• Iron Successfully Irons
• Light Successfully Emits Light
• Runner Successfully Runs

Sheesh.