It has enough propellant to function until 2025. == Naming == In August 2000, NASA solicited candidate names for the mission.
On September 20, NASA associate administrator Ed Weiler wrote to the associate administrator for public affairs recommending a name change from ARES to 2001 Mars Odyssey.
== Mission == Mars Odyssey launched from Cape Canaveral on April 7, 2001, and arrived at Mars about 200 days later on October 24.
This reduction in spacecraft weight allowed the mission to be launched on a Delta II 7925 launch vehicle, rather than a larger, more expensive launcher. Aerobraking ended in January 2002, and Odyssey began its science mapping mission on February 19, 2002.
The ground truth for its measurements came on July 31, 2008, when NASA announced that the Phoenix lander confirmed the presence of water on Mars, as predicted in 2002 based on data from the Odyssey orbiter.
Odyssey's original, nominal mission lasted until August 2004, but repeated mission extensions have kept the mission active. The payload's MARIE radiation experiment stopped taking measurements after a large solar event bombarded the Odyssey spacecraft on October 28, 2003.
Odyssey's original, nominal mission lasted until August 2004, but repeated mission extensions have kept the mission active. The payload's MARIE radiation experiment stopped taking measurements after a large solar event bombarded the Odyssey spacecraft on October 28, 2003.
Odyssey aided NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which reached Mars in March 2006, by monitoring atmospheric conditions during months when the newly arrived orbiter used aerobraking to alter its orbit into the desired shape. Odyssey is in a Sun-synchronous orbit, which provides consistent lighting for its photographs.
The orbiter helped analyze potential landing sites for the rovers and performed the same task for NASA's Phoenix mission, which landed on Mars in May 2008.
On September 30, 2008 (sol ) the spacecraft altered its orbit to gain better sensitivity for its infrared mapping of Martian minerals.
This estimate has since been extended until 2025. === Major discoveries === By 2008, Mars Odyssey had mapped the basic distribution of water below the shallow surface.
The ground truth for its measurements came on July 31, 2008, when NASA announced that the Phoenix lander confirmed the presence of water on Mars, as predicted in 2002 based on data from the Odyssey orbiter.
The orbiter also discovered vast deposits of bulk water ice near the surface of equatorial regions. By December 15, 2010, it broke the record for longest serving spacecraft at Mars, with 3,340 days of operation.
When one failed in June 2012, the fourth was spun up and successfully brought into service.
Since July 2012, Odyssey has been back in full, nominal operation mode following three weeks of 'safe' mode on remote maintenance. Mars Odyssey's THEMIS instrument was used to help select a landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).
Several days before MSL's landing in August 2012, Odyssey's orbit was altered to ensure that it would be able to capture signals from the rover during its first few minutes on the Martian surface.
Because Odyssey is in a Sun-synchronous orbit, it consistently passes over Curiosity's location at the same two times every day, which allowed for convenient scheduling of contact with Earth. On February 11, 2014, mission control accelerated Odyssey's drift toward a morning-daylight orbit to "enable observation of changing ground temperatures after sunrise and after sunset in thousands of places on Mars".
The orbital change occurred gradually until November 2015.
As of 2019 October it is in a polar orbit around Mars with a semi-major axis of about 3,800 km or 2,400 miles.
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