Cruise: Trajectory Correction Maneuvers
During seven months of travel through hundreds of millions of miles of space, the orbiter's path was adjusted slightly to make sure it arrived at the target location at Mars.
It was a remarkable achievement by the navigation team to nail down the target four months before the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived at the red planet! As a result, the orbiter used only two of five planned trajectory correction maneuvers to stay on course.
The two trajectory correction maneuvers occurred during the cruise phase:
For information about two more trajectory correction maneuvers that were available to the orbiter just in case it needed help during its final approach to Mars, please see the approach phase.