Instruments on board include:

Mars Orbiter Camera

Equipped with a wide-angle lens that will provide daily images of Mars (similar to weather photographs shown on television news reports) and a narrow-angle lens that can focus on objects as small as 1.5 meters wide.

Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter

Bounces beams of light off the planet surface to measure the topography.

Thermal Emission Spectrometer

easures heat emitted by the planet; helps analyze the atmosphere and mineral composition of the planet.

Magnetometer

Studies the planet's magnetic properties.

A total of 83 gigabytes of data will be transmitted back to Earth at rates as fast as 85,333 bits per second.