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Mission to Mars
Odyssey Probe Settles in to Orbit Around the Red Planet
 Odyssey in Orbit
Late Tuesday night, NASA's Odyssey spacecraft made a successful slip into orbit around Mars. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports for Morning Edition. Oct. 24, 2001.
Mission to Mars
On the eve of the Mars Odyssey's entry into orbit around the red planet, All Things Considered host Robert Siegel talks with
Odyssey mission manager David Spencer. Oct. 22, 2001.
Oct. 24, 2001 -- NASA's Odyssey spacecraft has completed a 285-million-mile journey to Mars and -- to the space agency's enormous relief -- is now circling the planet. Tuesday night, the spacecraft fired its main engine once to slow itself and slipped into a loose orbit of Mars.
At first, antennae on Earth had trouble locking onto the spacecraft. But eventually they found it, right where it was supposed to be -- following an egg-shaped path around the planet.
Named after the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the craft has spent six months in space, traveling at a cost of about a dollar a mile. Its success Tuesday night comes on the heels of two recent Mars mission failures.
When it was time for NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter to settle into its orbit
around Mars in September 1999, NASA suddenly lost the spacecraft --
apparently due to a mixup between metric and English measurements.
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The surface of Mars, taken by the Pathfinder probe in 1997.
Image: NASA |
Then, in December of 1999, NASA lost the Mars Polar Lander. The space
agency says a software bug may have shut off the Lander's rockets
prematurely during descent, causing it to slam into the surface.
The botched missions to the fourth planet from the sun prompted one official to
call Mars "the evil planet."
"NASA officials felt that this time, failure was not an option," NPR's David Kestenbaum says in his report for Morning Edition.
Bruce Jakosky, a geologist on the mission, watched Odyssey's maneuvering unfold from his home in Colorado. His reaction: "Thank God. This has been a real must-work mission for NASA. It would have been just devastating had it sailed past the planet or not worked." Jakosky was involved in the first Viking missions to Mars. About one in three NASA Mars missions have failed since then.
Tense times are still ahead. Over the next three months, NASA scientists will trim Odyssey's orbit. As the spacecraft whirls around Mars, it will dip slightly into the martian atmosphere. If all goes as planned, the friction will slow the craft down until Odyssey is circling just 250 miles above the surface. Then in January, the science can begin. One instrument on board will measure gamma rays coming from elements in the crust of Mars. Scientists say this device should be able to spot underground fields of ice. And where there is water, there may have been life.
Odyssey is also equipped with an infrared camera that will tell scientists not just what the surface looks like, but what it's made of.
Other Resources
• Track the Mars Odyssey
• 2001 Mars Odyssey Home Page
• NASA's Mars Explorations site
• Other NASA missions to Mars
• European Space Agency's Mars mission site
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