BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Another space story in today's "CNN 20," three years ago today, the Global Surveyor reached the planet of Mars. A look and a look back now.</s>JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: So you think your job presents some challenging moments? Well, NASA scientists with Mars on their minds are performing a maneuver over the next few hours that has been described as trying to throw a baseball from California to New York and hit a particular window in the Empire State Building.</s>VERONICA MCGREGOR, PRODUCER: Right after launch, they determined that a piece had broken in one of the solar panels. And that solar panel was going to be very flimsy if they did not point the satellite -- if they did not point it exactly correctly, that solar panel could break off. So there was a little bit of suspense. It went into Mars orbit, and it took several months to get into a proper orbit. They had to do it very slowly and carefully because of that minor break. It has been one of the most successful missions to Mars but has received probably the least amount of attention. On a daily basis, the Mars Global Surveyor sends back anywhere from 50 to 400 new pictures of the planet. Many of them are high resolution, they have a high resolution camera on board that takes pictures five to 10 times better than Viking ever took, and has sent back incredible photographs of dust devils actually spinning their way across the planet. And then they also have a wide angle camera that every single day takes a picture of the planet. So we are able to see exactly what the weather on Mars looks like on a daily basis.
CNN 20: Global Surveyor Reaches Mars, September 11, 1997