Mars needs TRAFFIC COP to stop probe prangs, says NASA

NASA has “beefed up” the processes it uses to stop orbiters around Mars from colliding with each other, after two orbiters came within two kilometres of each other in early January.

Humanity currently has five live orbiters around the red planet, namely NASA's MAVEN, Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), plus India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) and the European Space Agency's Mars Express. NASA's Mars Global Surveyor is bricked but is still in orbit.

Many of the orbiters' orbits intersect: the image at the top of this story shows that India's MOM, for example, cuts across the orbit of three other craft and Mars' two moons.

MAVEN's arrival last year complicated matters, because it too intersects other visitors' orbits .... http://www.theregister.co.uk