Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) began its second year of Extended Mission operations on February 1, 2002. The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) has been extremely busy during the Extended Mission. Objectives during the first year of the Extended Mission included:

• daily monitoring of martian weather, storms, and polar cap changes;
• search for surface changes caused by frost, wind, slope movements, and gully action;
• re-observe geologic features previously seen by MOC by pointing the spacecraft "off-nadir"---toward the feature---to provide "3-D" (stereoscopic) views;
• observe new areas, places of high scientific priority that were not previously seen, by pointing the spacecraft off nadir; and
• obtain pictures of other geologic features of interest, including sites being considered for the two 2003 Mars Exploration Rover landings.

In mid-August 2001, the orientation of the MGS spacecraft was changed so that the camera (which is fixed firmly to the spacecraft) no longer looks straight down towards the planet. This change, part of an effort to save fuel and further extend the lifetime of the MGS mission, orients the spacecraft so that the camera points 16° off-nadir. For MOC, this meant an increase in the number of sites that could be re-photographed to provide stereo (3-D) coverage. This added bonus for MOC also translated to additional stereo coverage for the sites being studied for the 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers. Images covering the 2003 rover sites are released each month.

In late June 2001, a series of large dust storms evolved into an event that obscured much of the planet for more than three months. During this time, MOC high resolution imaging focused on the one area that was not obscured by dust--the south polar cap. Some new images of the south polar cap are presented here; others were presented in December 2001. Pictures of the global dust events were presented in October 2001.

The pictures below show a few additional highlights from the first year of the MGS/MOC Extended Mission. To view them, please click on the icons below.

MOC2-300 N. Polar Layers

MOC2-301 Crater and Rays

MOC2-302 Arsia Spiral Cloud

MOC2-303 S. Polar Changes

MOC2-304 Relay-16 Stereo

MSSS Image Use Policy

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Malin Space Science Systems, Inc.

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