Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (
MRO) is a multipurpose
spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and
exploration of Mars from orbit. The spacecraft was built by
Lockheed Martin under the supervision of the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The mission is managed by the
California Institute of Technology, at the JPL, in
La Cañada Flintridge, California, for the
NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. It was launched August 12, 2005, and attained Martian orbit on March 10, 2006. In November 2006, after five months of
aerobraking, it entered its final science orbit and began its primary science phase. As MRO entered orbit, it joined five other active spacecraft which were either in orbit or on the planet's surface:
Mars Global Surveyor,
Mars Express,
2001 Mars Odyssey, and the two
Mars Exploration Rovers (
Spirit and
Opportunity); at the time, this set a record for the most operational spacecraft in the immediate vicinity of Mars.
Mars Global Surveyor and the
Spirit rover have since ceased to function; the remainder remain operational as of July 2015.