Space Fact of the Day #101:
The Mars Global Surveyor was a NASA probe that first launched on November 7th, 1996 from Cape Canaveral and first reached the vicinity of Mars on September 11th, 1997. Its primary goal was to study the entire Martian surface, atmosphere, and interior, and first began its primary mapping mission on April 1st, 1999 from a low-altitude, nearly polar orbit.