Timeline of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Timeline for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) lists the significant events of the launch, aerobraking, and transition phases as well as subsequent significant operational mission events; by date and brief description.

On February 9, 2018, NASA announced that it would keep using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter past the mid-2020s, although in the meantime the spacecraft and mission must face signs of age-related functional disturbances: 1. flagging batteries, 2. blurred images from HiRISE since 2017, 3. lowering reliability of gyroscopes or accelerometers for navigation, which will require a challenging examination on a matching mission design.

[17] Despite those challenges the reasons for this decision are: the loss of Mars Global Surveyor in 2006, the postponement of the Mars 2022 orbiter as the proposed successor of MRO and MAVEN's shortage of fuel, that makes MRO now the critical element of the NASA's further Mars Exploration Program.

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Animation of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter 's trajectory from 12 August 2005 to 31 December 2007
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter · Earth · Mars · Sun
Transfer orbit from Earth to Mars. TCM-1 to TCM-4 denote the planned trajectory correction maneuvers.
Animation of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's trajectory around Mars from 10 March 2006 to 30 September 2007
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter · Mars
First image of Mars from the HiRISE camera