Well done to the boys and gals at Nasa whose latest probe the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter achieved orbit at 2124 GMT. Able to pick out objects on the surface the size of a dinner table, in about six months the MRO should start beaming back high resolution images and other data. Thank god they got it right this time considering the 1999 Mars climate orbiter smacked straight into the ground after a mix up over whether they were using metric or imperial measurements when sending course corrections and the Mars polar lander fell silent as it attempted to land in the same year.

However before I get my hopes up too much the orbiter still has to go through over 500 aerobraking manouevers before it can start its' work. Six months of gut wrenching tension for the poor buggers at the JPL me thinks.