Mars Odyssey
Conceptual drawing of Mars Odyssey over Mars.
|
|
| Mission type | Mars orbiter |
|---|---|
| Operator | NASA / JPL |
| COSPAR ID | 2001-014A |
| SATCAT no. | 26734 |
| Website | mars |
| Mission duration | Elapsed: 15 years, 10 months and 23 days from launch 15 years, 4 months and 6 days at Mars (5458 sols) En route: 6 months, 17 days Primary mission: 32 months (1007 sols) Extended mission: 12 years, 6 months and 5 days (4450 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 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, 4 months and 6 days.
...
Wikipedia