Malin Space Science Systems

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Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS)

Type	Privately held company
Founded	1990
Headquarters	San Diego, California
Key people	Michael C. Malin, CEO

Malin Space Science Systems (or MSSS) is a San Diego, California company that designs, develops, and operates instruments to fly on unmanned spacecraft. MSSS is headed by chief scientist and CEO Michael C. Malin.

Founded in 1990, their first mission was the failed 1993 Mars Observer for which they developed and operated the Mars Observer Camera Ground Data System. After this mission they were selected to provide the main camera for Mars Global Surveyor. They also developed the cameras that were carried on Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter.

The most successful of their instruments to date was the Mars Observer Camera (MOC), onboard the Mars Global Surveyor placed into orbit around Mars in September 1997. From that date till November 2006, the MOC took more than 212,000 images of Mars, some at very high resolution. Among the MOCs notable successes was the imaging of the landing sites of the two Mars Exploration Rovers (the discarded heatshield of one of the rovers was located). Even before they landed, images from the MOC were very useful in picking the destinations of the two rovers.

After more than nine years of active duty, the Mars Global Surveyor ceased sending data back to Earth and may now be lost, along with all its instruments, including the MOC.

For the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched on August 12, 2005, MSSS built the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) which will take wide angle, daily global views of Mars and the Context Imager (CTX) which will have a six metre resolution. In 2009 the Mars Science Laboratory will be launched. On board will be three MSSS cameras. The MastCam will be the main camera on board taking still and motion images of the surrounding. The Mars Hand Lens Imager will be on the instrument arm and provide close up images of martian soil and rocks. Finally the Mars Descent Imager will provide high resolution images of the ground during descent.

1 Liquid water on Mars
2 Other pictures
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Liquid water on Mars

Evidence of water flowing on Mars

In June 2000, evidence for water currently under the surface of Mars was discovered in the form of flood-like gullies.^[1] The question that was immediately asked was: is this an on-going process or is this ancient and simply well presevered evidence of water/liquid flow? Most scientists agree that it is highly likely that water did flow on Mars in the distant past. Link to the June 2000 article

Malin's camera controllers attempted to answer this question by taking photos of the same locations and in 2005 observation showed two areas where change had clearly occurred within the time of the photos (in other words, the activity was happening in present time and was not ancient).

On December 6, 2006, MSSS announced that it had discovered evidence that liquid water had likely flown on Mars within the past five years. At a press conference, NASA showed images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor that suggested that water occasionally flows on the surface of Mars. The images did not actually show flowing water. Rather, they showed changes in craters and sediment deposits, providing the strongest evidence yet that water coursed through them as recently as several years ago, and is perhaps doing so even now. The findings were published in the December 8, 2006 issue of the journal Science.^[2]

Malin Systems published several documents which explain what they found

Before the December 2006 paper, some researchers were skeptical that liquid water was responsible for the surface features seen by the spacecraft. They said other materials such as sand or dust can flow like a liquid and produce similar results. At this stage, (late 2006) the flowing water hypothesis looks strong, however more evidence is needed. For more, see Life on Mars.