Related: NASA spacecraft enters Mars orbit
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    LOS ANGELES, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Cameras aboard the newest Mars probe were successfully pointed at the red planet in a test and took high-resolution pictures, U.S. space agency NASA reported on Friday.

NASA artist's conception image shows the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). (Xinhua/AFP/file)

    The first images of Mars from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provide a tantalizing preview of what the spacecraft will reveal in future science mission, said NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

    "These high-resolution images of Mars are thrilling, and uniquegiven the early morning time-of-day," said Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera.

    "The final orbit of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be over Mars in the mid-afternoon, like Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey," he added.

    Three cameras -- the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, the Context Camera and the Mars Color Imager -- were tested Thursday evening, while the spacecraft collected engineering test data, according to mission scientists.

    The main purpose of these images is to enable the camera team to develop calibration and image-processing procedures such as the precise corrections needed for color imaging and for high-resolution surface measurements from stereo pairs of images.

    "These images provide the first opportunity to test camera settings and the spacecraft's ability to point the camera with Mars filling the instruments' field of view," said Steve Saunders, a mission scientist.

    "The information learned will be used to prepare for the primary mission next fall."

    To get desired groundspeeds and lighting conditions for the test images, mission scientists programmed the cameras to shoot while the spacecraft was flying about 2,489 km or more above Martian surface, nine times the range planned for the orbiter's primary science mission.

    Even so, the highest resolution of about 2.5 meters per pixel is comparable to some of the best resolution previously achieved from Mars orbit, scientists said.

    Further processing of the images during the next week or two is expected to combine narrow swaths into broader views and show color in some portions.

    The 2.1-ton orbiter, labeled as NASA's most advanced robotic spacecraft for Mars exploration, was launched on Aug. 12, 2005. Now it has been flying in elongated orbits around Mars since it entered orbit on March 10.

    Every 35 hours, it swings about 44,000 km away from the red planet, and then comes back within about 425 km of Mars' surface.

    The mission team continues preparing for aerobraking. That process will use about 550 careful dips into the atmosphere during the next seven months to shrink a near-circular orbit less than 300 km above the ground. Its major science mission is set to begin in November. Enditem