2001 Mars Odyssey
NASA orbiter for geology and hydrology / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about 2001 Mars Odyssey?
Summarize this article for a 10 years old
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.[4] It is hoped that the data Odyssey obtains will help answer the question of whether life existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Curiosity rover, and previously the Mars Exploration Rovers and Phoenix lander, to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of his and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.[5][6]
Artist's impression of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft | |
| Mission type | Mars orbiter |
|---|---|
| Operator | NASA / JPL |
| COSPAR ID | 2001-013A  |
| SATCAT no. | 26734 |
| Website | mars |
| Mission duration |
|
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Manufacturer | Lockheed Martin |
| Launch mass | 725 kg[1] |
| Dry mass | 376.3 kilograms (830 lb) |
| Power | 750 W |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | April 7, 2001, 15:02:22 (2001-04-07UTC15:02:22Z) UTC[2] |
| Rocket | Delta II 7925-9.5 |
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral SLC-17A |
| Contractor | Boeing |
| End of mission | |
| Last contact | Q4 2025 (planned) |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Areocentric |
| Regime | Sun-synchronous |
| Semi-major axis | 3,793.4 km (2,357.1 mi)[3] |
| Eccentricity | 0.0 |
| Altitude | 400 km (250 mi)[3] |
| Inclination | 93.064°[3] |
| Period | 2 hours[3] |
| RAAN | 34.98°[3] |
| Argument of periareion | 0°[3] |
| Mean anomaly | 0°[3] |
| Epoch | October 19, 2002[3] |
| Mars orbiter | |
| Orbital insertion | October 24, 2001, MSD 45435 12:21 AMT |
| |
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).[7]
On May 28, 2002 (sol 210), NASA reported that Odyssey's GRS instrument had detected large amounts of hydrogen, a sign that there must be ice lying within a meter of the planet's surface, and proceeded to map the distribution of water below the shallow surface.[8] The orbiter also discovered vast deposits of bulk water ice near the surface of equatorial regions.[9]
By December 15, 2010, it broke the record for longest serving spacecraft at Mars, with 3,340 days of operation.[10] Odyssey has also served as the primary means of communications for NASA's Mars surface explorers in the past decade, up to the Curiosity rover. 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 (served 14 years[11]) and the Mars Express (serving over 19 years), at 22 years, 1 month and 1 day. As of October 2019[update] it is in a polar orbit around Mars with a semi-major axis of about 3,800 km or 2,400 miles. It is estimated to have enough propellant to function until the end of 2025.[12]
Oops something went wrong: