Mars Express in numbers

Launched in June 2003, ESA’s Mars Express has been studying all aspects of the Red Planet for more than 15 years. Later this year it will celebrate its 20 000th orbit of Mars. This graphic highlights some of the mission’s impressive numbers to date, which will certainly continue to increase over time.

Notes:

• Mars Express launched on 2 June 2003

• Mars Express has imaged 98.8% of the planet's surface with the High Resolution Stereo Camera, with around 81% imaged with resolution better than 20 m/pixel

• Mars Express makes repeated flybys of Phobos: to date more than 50 within 500 km, and around 180 within 1000 km distance of the moon. Flybys at greater distances are also used to study Phobos' position. More about the 45 km close flyby.

• The value for the volume of data in the planetary science archive also includes extra documents and calibration procedures as well as the data transmitted

• The Visual Monitoring Camera was 'upgraded' to a scientific camera in 2016; there are seven other instruments that together make up the scientific payload

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