WASHINGTON -- Putting a zoom lens on the Red Planet is the camera-toting task for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Slated for Earth departure in August 2005, the Mars-circling MRO will snap super-detailed portraits of the Martian landscape. MRO's powerful imaging system can help identify safe and scientifically rewarding landing sites for future robotic craft, as well as human expeditions.

While landers and meandering rovers are built to carry out on-the-spot research, MRO is to "make the rounds," circling the globe in remote sensing mode. This orbiter can study the surface in unprecedented detail, revealing the whole of Mars at never-before-seen scales.

Following the double-whammy loses in 1999 of the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander, a red-faced NASA revamped agency plans. Out of the failures came two decades worth of new missions, including the MRO.

Last October, NASA unveiled its refurbished campaign of Mars exploration.

Edward Weiler, NASA's chief of space science, said the new strategy could prove to be a watershed in the history of Mars exploration.

"We're going to dig deep into the details of Mars' mineralogy, geology and climate history in a way we've never been able to do before," he said.

"We also plan to 'follow the water' so that in the not-to-distant future we may finally know the answers to the most far-reaching questions about the Red Planet we humans have asked over the generations: Did life ever arise there, and does life exist there now?"