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Background of the MOLA Investigation
MOLA-2 Instrument

The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA-2). (Image credit: NASA/GSFC Laser Remote Sensing Branch)


The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, launched November 7, 1996 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the California Institute of Technology, carries a remote-sensing instrument, MOLA-2, a laser altimeter with a range precision of 37 centimeters, and a profiling resolution on the Martian surface of ~300 m. MOLA's vertical accuracy is limited by the orbital determination for the spacecraft, and is currently at the sub-5-m level (~1-meter not including geoid error!) but is expected to improve further with advanced orbit reconstruction techniques.

MOLA-2, aka the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, was designed by the Laser Remote Sensing Branch of the Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics of NASA/GSFC, with support from Goddard's Engineering Systems Analysis Branch. MOLA-2 is a descendant of the MOLA instrument carried aboard the ill-fated Mars Observer spacecraft.

The original MOLA instrument was described in:
Zuber, M.T., et al., The Mars Observer Laser Altimeter Investigation, J. Geophys. Res., 97, 7781-7797, 1992.

A description of the laser transmitter can be found in:
Afzal, R.S., Mars Observer Laser Altimeter: Laser transmitter, Applied Optics, 33, 3184-3188, 1994.

The SLA-01 and SLA-02 instruments built from MOLA spares were flown successfully aboard the Space Shuttle as Hitchhiker experiments.

MOLA is also the type genus of a family of "strange, large oceanic fishes", Molidae, with a millstone-like, tetraodontiform shape.


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