Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter the Mars Odyssey orbiter. The Electra radio has proven its functionality by relaying information to and from the MER spacecraft, "Phoenix" Mars lander and "Curiosity" Rover. The Optical Navigation Camera images the Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, against background stars to precisely determine MRO's orbit. Although moon imaging is not mission critical, it was included as a technology test for future orbiting and landing of spacecraft. The Optical Navigation Camera was tested successfully in February and March 2006. There is a proposal to search for small moons, dust rings, and old orbiters with it. Workers at Lockheed Martin Space Systems
Exploration of Mars space probe to orbit another planet when it entered into orbit around Mars. The amount of data returned by probes increased dramatically as technology improved. The first to contact the surface were two Soviet probes: Mars 2 lander on November 27 and Mars 3 lander on December 2, 1971Mars 2 failed during descent and Mars 3 about twenty seconds after the first Martian soft landing. Mars 6 failed during descent but did return some corrupted atmospheric data in 1974. The Soviet probes Phobos 1 and 2 were sent to Mars in 1988 to study Mars and its two moons, with