On the 3,340th day since it's arrival at Mars, NASA's Odyssey orbiter became the longest operating spacecraft at the Red Planet.

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This video created by JPL's Solar System Visualization Team uses real scientific data from Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System's Infrared Camera to simulate a flight from a few hundred feet above the largest canyon in the solar system, Valles Marineris on Mars. The image data was draped over topography information from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. Every canyon wall and curve in the animation is rendered from real data from Mars except for the simulated atmosphere, dust devils, and dust storms.

Full Credits (PDF, 32 kB)

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In this 11-minute movie, the Odyssey orbiter team shares their discoveries and long-term plans to unravel the mysteries of Mars. During Odyssey's successful primary mission, the team found a "buried treasure" of water ice. On Earth, water is a key ingredient for life, and finding the new abundance of ice increases the chances that Mars was once a habitat for life and could support human astronauts in the future. Odyssey continues to create the highest resolution global image maps ever acquired at Mars, as well as maps of what chemical elements are present on the surface of the red planet. Odyssey also analyzes health risks for future human explorers, enables students to take their own pictures of Mars, and relays over 95% of the data from the Mars rovers.

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Complete Version

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Mars Odyssey Web Cast: November 14, 2002

Scientists explain Odyssey's initial discoveries and take questions from schools, museums, and employees at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory during a live interactive web cast broadcasted from JPL's von Karman auditorium.

Fostering the Next Generation of Mars Explorers

The Mars Student Imaging Project allows students from the fifth grade through community college to take their own pictures of Mars using a thermal infrared visible camera system onboard NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which is currently circling the red planet.

Odyssey's Gamma Ray Spectrometer Instrument Deployed

Flight controllers for NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft completed the last major technical milestone today in support of the science mission by unfurling the boom that holds the gamma ray spectrometer sensor head instrument.

Mars Odyssey Observes First Anniversary in Space

What a year this has been for the Mars Odyssey team!

The excitement of launch last April 7, the arrival at Mars, the long, sometimes tedious aerobraking concluded so successfully, the beginning of the mapping phase

Happy Navigators Prepare to Say "Goodnight and Goodbye" to Odyssey's Successful Aerobraking
With the successful completion of the aerobraking effort, the Odyssey navigation team is leaving a legacy of well-honed interdisciplinary tools and techniques certain to be used on future missions using aerobraking.

Machinists to the Stars
It's the middle of the night at JPL, and the usual dozens of deer are on their nightly foraging rounds across the campus. Mars is up. So is the Moon. And so are nine machinists in the lab's high-precision fabrication shop, working the second shift that ends between midnight and 3 a.m. They are part of the round-the-clock team turning out odd-shaped pieces of metal that will become robots destined for Mars.

Mars Orbit Insertion
Experience a computer-generated animation of the Odyssey spacecraft on its voyage to the red planet. This animation covers its journey from Earth to Mars, Orbit Insertion, and Aerobraking.
Spacecraft animations by Zareh Gorjian

Orbit Insertion
Getting to Mars is difficult enough -- staying there is even more challenging. Odyssey meets up with Mars on October 24 02:30 UTC (October 23: 7:30 p.m. PDT/10:30 p.m.EDT). That's when the spacecraft will execute an engine firing that brakes its speed (relative to Mars) and allows Odyssey to be captured into orbit around Mars. In this final episode before Odyssey's orbit insertion maneuver next week, Odyssey team members explain their rigorous preparations for the event.

NASA TV will begin coverage at 7 p.m. PDT October 23.

Telecommunications
How do you converse with a robot nearly one hundred million miles away? In this video, Odyssey team members describe communications with the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft using the antennas of the Deep Space Network . Also, tune in live when Odyssey arrives at Mars. NASA TV will broadcast live from the spacecraft operations centers at JPL in California and Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Colorado during Odyssey's scheduled arrival at Mars on October 24 02:30 UTC (October 23: 7:30 p.m. PDT/10:30 p.m.EDT). NASA TV will begin coverage at 7 p.m. PDT October 23.

Interplanetary Cruise
NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft is quickly approaching Mars, and due to enter orbit there on October 24 UTC (October 23, 7:30 pm PT/10:30 pm ET). The Odyssey team has successfully completed the third trajectory correction maneuver to adjust the spacecraft's flightpath toward its final aimpoint for entry into Mars orbit. In the second installment of a four-part video series, The Challenges of Getting to Mars, Odyssey navigation team members discuss the challenges of flying from Earth to Mars.

Aerobraking
The Odyssey spacecraft was launched toward Mars on April 7, 2001 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. In this four-part video series, Odyssey navigation team members explain the daily challenges of steering a spacecraft 93 million miles from Earth to Mars.

The first episode describes the intense aerobraking phase, which begins two days after the spacecraft arrives at Mars (Mars Orbit Insertion, October 24, 2001). From then on, navigation team members still have three months of difficult maneuvering to do in order to slow the spacecraft down and bring Odyssey into its circular science mapping orbit. Using atmospheric drag to "aerobrake," the spacecraft dips into the Martian atmosphere once every time the spacecraft swings by its closest approach to Mars.

Future episodes discuss the hostile conditions the spacecraft encounters on its journey to Mars, the challenges of communicating with a distant spacecraft, and the upcoming critical event: Mars Orbit Insertion.