PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA22830: Two Days Till Mars for MarCO
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  MarCO
 Spacecraft:  MarCO-B
 Product Size:  1920 x 1080 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA22830.tif (887.7 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA22830.jpg (55.9 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Click here for larger version of PIA22830
Annotated Image
Click on the image for larger version

NASA's twin MarCO spacecraft are scheduled to make a flyby of Mars on Nov. 26. On Nov. 24, a wide-angle camera on MarCO-B took this picture of the Red Planet, which appears as a small, grey dot in the lower left quadrant of the image. On the right side of the image is the spacecraft's high-gain antenna. On the left side is the high-gain antenna feed, as well as part of the spacecraft's thermal blanket.

MarCO-B was approximately 310,000 miles (500,000 km) away from Mars at the time. Mars is actually only about 3 pixels wide in this image, but because of blurring it appears larger.

An annotated version of this image notes the location of Mars, the high-gain antenna, high-gain antenna feed and thermal blanket.

Each about the size of a briefcase, the MarCO spacecraft are CubeSats, or small satellites built from standardized units that are 4 inches (10 cm) square. (Each MarCO satellite consists of six CubeSat units.) The MarCOs are the first CubeSats to reach deep space, and were the first CubeSats to photograph Mars.

The MarCO and InSight projects are managed for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2018-11-25