10.000 km über dem Mars

Low-resolution VMC image acquired on 15 December 2012 at 03:10:03 GMT at an altitude of 9761.02 km above Mars, on Mars Express orbit number 11,396.

On 18 December 2012, this image was selected as the symbolic „first data“ to be downloaded via ESA’s new Malargüe deep-space tracking station in Argentina. The image was acquired by the Visual Monitoring Camera on the Mars orbiter and travelled 327 million km in just over 18 minutes.

The tracking pass began at about 22:11 GMT (23:11 CET) on 18 December. On arrival at the station, the data were transmitted to ESOC, ESA’s European Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, Germany.