2001 Mars Odyssey

Mars Odyssey

Conceptual drawing of Mars Odyssey over Mars.
Mission type	Mars orbiter
Operator	NASA / JPL
COSPAR ID	2001-014A
SATCAT №	26734
Website	mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/
Mission duration	Elapsed: 15 years, 10 months and 1 day from launch 15 years, 3 months and 15 days at Mars (5437 sols) En route: 6 months, 17 days Primary mission: 32 months (1007 sols) Extended mission: 12 years, 5 months and 14 days (4428 sols) elapsed
Spacecraft properties
Manufacturer	Lockheed Martin
Launch mass	758 kilograms (1,671 lb)
Dry mass	376.3 kilograms (830 lb)
Power	750 W
Start of mission
Launch date	7 April 2001, 15:02:22 (2001-04-07UTC15:02:22Z) UTC
Rocket	Delta II 7925-9.5
Launch site	Cape Canaveral SLC-17A
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Areocentric
Semi-major axis	3,785 kilometers (2,352 mi)
Eccentricity	0.0115
Periareion	201 kilometers (125 mi)
Apoareion	500 kilometers (310 mi)
Inclination	93.2 degrees
Period	117.84 minutes
Mars orbiter
Orbital insertion	24 October 2001, 02:18:00 UTC MSD 45435 12:21 AMT

2001 Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. It is hoped that the data Odyssey obtains will help answer the question of whether life has ever existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory, and previously the Phoenix lander to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Odyssey was launched April 7, 2001 on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and reached Mars orbit on October 24, 2001, at 02:30 UTC (October 23, 19:30 PDT, 22:30 EDT). It is currently in a polar orbit around Mars with an altitude of about 3,800 km or 2,400 miles.

By December 15, 2010 it broke the record for longest serving spacecraft at Mars, with 3,340 days of operation, claiming the title from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. It currently holds the record for the longest-surviving continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth, ahead of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter, at 15 years, 3 months and 15 days.