With just five days to go before NASA’s most crucial mission in years reaches its most crucial moment, managers laid out the timetable for the Mars Odyssey Spacecraft’s insertion into orbit, slated for Oct. 23. At a press conference at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Thursday, officials also said the craft had successfully performed its last course correction and is on track and ready for its Tuesday evening meeting with the Red Planet.
October 18th, 2001
NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey Spacecraft Poised to Arrive at Mars
Odyssey was launched April 7 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Other than our Moon, Mars has attracted more spacecraft exploration attempts than any other object in the solar system, and no other planet has proved as daunting to success. Of the 30 missions sent to Mars by three countries over 40 years, less than one-third have been successful. “The spacecraft, ground system and flight team are ready for Mars orbit insertion,” said Matthew Landano, Odyssey project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. “We uplinked the sequence of commands that control the orbit insertion on October 15. Now we will closely monitor the spacecraft’s progress as it approaches Mars and executes the orbit insertion burn.”
October 18th, 2001
Mars, Ho!
Odyssey was launched April 7, 2001, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Since then it has traveled 460 million kilometers — an interplanetary journey that has gone “flawlessly.” Other than our Moon, Mars has attracted more spacecraft than any other object in the solar system — and no other planet has proved as daunting to success. Of the 30 missions sent to Mars by three countries over 40 years, less than one-third have been successful. Scientists, mission controllers, and Mars enthusiasts everywhere hope Odyssey will become one of the exceptional spacecraft that make it.
October 16th, 2001
UA Mars Scientists Hold Open House As Odyssey Arrives At Mars
University of Arizona space scientists are inviting the public to join them on campus at a special open house at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. next Tuesday, Oct. 23, as the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft arrives at Mars. The State of Arizona has a lot riding on the mission — namely two of the three primary science instruments, said LPL director Michael Drake.
October 12th, 2001
Odyssey Managers Plan Aerobraking by Halloween
Odyssey’s aerobraking around Mars could be a trick or treat event. If all goes as planned, the spacecraft will begin dipping into the Martian atmosphere about a week after the probe is inserted into Mars orbit — that is, around Halloween. Data gleaned by the already-orbiting Mars Global Surveyor is set to help Odyssey snuggle up into a correct science orbit. “We may want to ‘pop up’ if a storm appears and spreads quickly. We always want an orbit that will not decay and plunge us into Mars before we can do a maneuver,” said Steve Saunders, JPL Mars Odyssey Project Scientist.
October 11th, 2001
Hobbled Odyssey Nears Mars
The Mars Odyssey Orbiter is less than two weeks away from its destination, zooming toward the Red Planet with two wounded instruments and the hope of an entire space agency driving it onward. It is a must-win situation for NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), coming on the heels of two failed missions to Mars. Last Thursday, engineers were put through a full dress rehearsal for what will be the most nerve-wracking part of the mission — the unavoidable silence and waiting for confirmation that all has gone well in the first step of a tricky insertion into orbit around Mars on October 23.
September 17th, 2001
Mars Odyssey Mission Status
NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft performed its third trajectory correction maneuver last night to fine-tune its flight path for arrival at Mars next month. Odyssey will arrive at Mars at 0230 Universal time Oct. 24 (7:30 p.m. Pacific time Oct. 23).
September 6th, 2001
The Challenges of Getting to Mars
The 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft was launched toward Mars on April 7, 2001, from Cape Canaveral; it will arrive at the red planet in just 48 days. 2001 Mars Odyssey is an orbiter carrying three scientific instruments designed to make global observations of Mars to improve our understanding of the planet’s climate and geologic history, including the search for liquid water and evidence of past life. The mission will extend across a full Martian year, or 29 Earth months. The image shows the process of aerobraking, or using the friction of the atmosphere to lower its orbit; this enables the spacecraft to carry less fuel. In the first of a four-part video series, Odyssey navigation team members explain the daily challenges of steering a spacecraft 93 million miles from Earth to Mars. Follow the link to go to the video…
August 20th, 2001
Mars Probe Experiment Shut Down, Spacecraft OK
NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, now 18.5 million kilometers (11.5 million miles) from Mars on its way to a rendezvous with the red planet on October 23, remains in overall good health. Flight controllers have turned off the Martian radiation environment experiment after the instrument did not respond during a downlink session last week. Following unsuccessful attempts to reset the radiation instrument, the mission manager and project officials have decided to form a team to further study the anomaly over the next several weeks and propose a course of action to recover the instrument following Mars orbit insertion on October 23.
July 2nd, 2001
Greek Composer Vangelis Says Music Shaped Space
Whether it’s exploring space, conquering an athlete’s inner limits or discovering a new continent, Greek Oscar-winning composer Vangelis has made the music to match. The top-selling artist, who has an asteroid between Jupiter and Mars named after him, has merged his love of music, space and mythology in an ode to the 2001 NASA mission to Mars. Vangelis, who won an Academy Award for his theme to “Chariots of Fire,” performed his new choral symphony Mythodea amid the ruins of the temple of Zeus in central Athens last week to an audience of thousands.