Summary
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 electronic imagers to hunt for evidence of past or present water and volcanic activity on Mars. It is hoped that the data Odyssey obtains will help answer the question of whether life has ever existed on Mars. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Mars Exploration Rovers and the Phoenix lander to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Cospar ID
2001-014a
Launch Date
2001-04-07 15:02:22 UTC
Carrier Rocket
Delta II 7425
Orbital Insertion Date
2001-10-24 02:18:00 UTC
Orbital Elements
Semimajor Axis 3785 km (~400 km above surface)
Eccentricity 0.0115
Inclination 93.2 degrees
Orbital Period 1.964 hours