[Abstract] The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was launched on August 12, 2005 by an Atlas V launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and arrived at Mars on March 10, 2006. MRO carries a rich set of science instruments to Mars, and provides global and regional survey, and targeted observations. In addition, a set of engineering instruments providing optical navigation, Ka band telecommunication and ultra-high frequency (UHF) relay services to future Mars missions are part of the MRO payload. After arriving at Mars on March 10, 2006, MRO was captured in a 35.5 hour orbit around Mars. On March 23, 2006, MRO had begun its aerobraking operations to reduce its orbit time to less than two hours and reach the preferred ascending node time of 3:00 pm Mars Local Time. On August 31, 2006, an aerobraking termination maneuver was carried out onboard MRO in order to finish the aerobraking phase, and a set of maneuvers were conducted to finalize the Primary Science Orbit (PSO). A set of transition activities, including engineering and science instrument calibrations and a weeks worth of “science practice” were carried out during this period as well, immediately prior to MRO’s entrance into the solar conjunction period. During the Primary Science Phase (PSP) of the mission, the MRO operations teams were presented with two major challenges – unprecedented high data rate and data volumes, and complex science planning and resource sharing. MRO has the capability to communicate with earth at a maximum of six Megabits per second (Mbps), which is more than 50 times any previous Mars missions. With the current Deep Space Network (DSN) contact schedule of 19 eight-hour tracks per week, the baseline mission plan is for MRO to return 34 Terabits of raw science data during the two-year primary science phase. Each of the science instruments has its unique requirements for global mapping, regional survey, and targeted observations. Some instruments prefer nadir-only observations, while others require offnadir observations (especially for stereo viewing). The requirements from these Mars viewing instruments presented a significant challenge for the operations team to design the complex science planning and resource sharing and allocation process. In addition, because of the high resolution instruments, navigation accuracy requirement at this low orbit became critical. This paper describes the implementations put forth by MRO to solve these challenges, and some of the subsequent results.