Countdown Nears: Final Tests

Download a PDF of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Launch Press Kit.

Dry ice causes "Swiss Cheese" terrain on Mars.

This image, taken with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, shows the transition between the "Murray Formation," in which layers are poorly expressed and difficult to tra...

This HiRISE image shows erosional features formed by seasonal frost near the south pole of Mars.

This map shows the footprints of images taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as part of advance analysis of the area where NASA's InSight mission will land in 2018. The ...

The total distance driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity passed the one-mile mark a few days before the first anniversary of the rover's landing on Mars.

Martian gullies as seen in the top image from HiRISE on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter resemble gullies on Earth that are carved by liquid water. However, when they are observed with the additi...

This artist's concept shows NASA's Mars orbiters lining up behind the Red Planet for their "duck and cover" maneuver to shield them fro comet dust that may result from the close flyby of comet Sidi...

Back-and-forth blinking of this two-image animation shows movement of a sand dune on Mars. The images are part of a study published by Nature on May 9, 2012, reporting movement of Martian sand dune...

These two frames were taken of the same place on Mars by the same camera before (left) and after some images from the camera began showing unexpected blur. The images are from the HiRISE camera on ...

NASA's InSight spacecraft and its recently deployed Wind and Thermal Shield were imaged on Feb. 4 by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The Mars Color Imager test view looks northward and includes the large Argyre Basin in Mars' southern hemisphere.

This image includes an especially long example of a type of dark marking that advances down some Martian slopes in warmer months and fades away in cooler months.

Stokes Crater, pictured here, is one of at least nine craters in the northern lowlands of Mars with exposures of hydrated minerals detected from orbit, according to a June 25, 2010, report.

This image from the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a location associated with the novel and movie, "The Martian." It is the tale's planned landing site for the Ares 4 mis...

Phobos from 5,800 Kilometers

This image shows part of Ladon Vallis that is located within Ladon basin.

Candor Chasma is one of the major canyons within Valles Marineris. The floor of this canyon consist of many layers of light-toned sediments that have been folded and faulted, giving them the wavy a...

This graphic depicts the Mars Climate Sounder instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter measuring the temperature of a cross section of the Martian atmosphere as the orbiter passes above the...

This rainbow-colored map shows underground water ice on Mars. Cool colors are closer to the surface than warm colors; black zones indicate areas where a spacecraft would sink into fine dust; the ou...

The bright linear features cutting the bedrock in the center region of this image look like mineral veins.

Impact cratering and erosion combine to reveal the composition of the Martian underground by exposing materials from the subsurface.

Follow along on a tour of the landing scene of NASA's Curiosity rover in this video made up of images from two NASA orbiters. The movie begins with a global image from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, ...

This sequence of images shows a blast zone where the sky crane from NASA's Curiosity rover mission hit the ground after setting the rover down in August 2012, and how that dark scar's appearance ch...

This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows the western wall of a small pit that is located along the floor of a larger trough in Coprates Catena. Dark layers line the bottom; li...