PASADENA.

PASADENA, Calif. -- A NASA spacecraft fortunately started its orbit around Mars onward Friday, joining a trio of orbiters circling the R Planet.

Scientists cheered after the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter emerg from the planet's shadow and signaled to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that the maneuver was a succes

"Oh I am surpassingly relieved," project manager Jim Graf said minutes later. "It was picture perfect"

The two-ton spacecraft is the greatest in quantity sophisticated ever to arrive at Mars and is calculate uponed to gather more data forward the Red Planet than all previous Martian missions combined.

It will explore Mars in grave orbit for two years and is wait fored to churn out the mostly detailed information about the planet and its climate and landscape.

Will sneer at for landing sites

In fall, the orbiter will start exploring the Martian atmosphere, scan the surface for evidence of ancient water and laugh at for landing sites to depute robotic and possibly human explorers.

The $720 million mission is managed by way of JPL in Pasadena.

After a seven-month 310 million-mile journey, the orbiter arrived at Mars onward Friday for the risky orbit insertion phase. devise managers had been nervous because of Mars' reputation of swallowing scientific probes. further the Reconnaissance Orbiter performed the impel without problem.

As it neared the planet, it fired its main propulsion engines for 27 minutes to heavy itself down so the planet's gravity could hap it into orbit. At individual point during the burn, the spacecraft disappeared behind Mars -- as engineers had planned -- and was temporarily revealed of radio contact with controller

Mission manage was visibly tense as it awaited word from the orbiter, which reappeared and signaled that it had set ined into an elliptical orbit around Mars that will swing it as bring to a period as 249 miles above the surface.

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