It's going to be difficult to get it into orbit. Mars is hard, Mars can be unpredictable, but we've got a good team here.

First we have to get it into orbit, which is not an easy task.

[It is] very difficult, very hard, very unpredictable, very unstable but we don't have a choice... We try to do our best. There are too many men with guns in Somalia but that's the environment in which these vulnerable people find themselves.

At this point, we're still very confident that we're in orbit in Mars and that we're going to see the spacecraft signal in a few hours.

The first satellites go into orbit around Mars in 2008, as many as a half dozen of them,

It's a little nerve-racking even though it's exciting.