Our Eye on Mars 🔴 As it marks 20 years at the Red Planet, here are five ways @NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is mapping the future of exploration. 🛰 ➠ 👩‍🚀 🧵 1/6

Scouting for Resources MRO has discovered many locations on Mars that could help future astronauts, including buried ice revealed by radar, water ice exposed by impacts, and caves that could potentially provide shelter. 2/6

Monitoring the Weather From its orbital vantage point, MRO has provided a better understanding of weather patterns, which can inform future dust storm monitoring for planning astronaut excursions on the surface. 3/6

Charting the Terrain MRO has provided 3D, high-res maps for route planning across the Martian terrain for both current and potential future missions. It has also mapped minerals on the surface. 4/6

Preparing for Landing MRO can map landing site hazards, assess soil stability, provide images for post-landing assessment, and even capture images of spacecraft on descent! (This is a shot of the Curiosity rover under its parachute shortly before landing.) 5/6

Communication During two decades, MRO has supported NASA’s ground operations on Mars – from the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, to the Phoenix and InSight landers, to the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. So far, MRO has relayed more than 2.3 terabits of data to Earth! 6/6