MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Contact: Mary Hardin (818) 354-0344
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 7, 2001
NASA'S 2001 MARS ODYSSEY SPACECRAFT IS ON ITS WAY
NASA's return to Mars began at 11:02 a.m. Eastern time this
morning as the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft roared into space
onboard a Delta II launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station, Fla.
About 53 minutes later, at 11:55 a.m. Eastern time, flight
controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory received the
first signal from the spacecraft through the Deep Space Network
station in Canberra, Australia indicating that all is well aboard
the orbiter.
"I've never seen a more spectacular launch," said David
Spencer, Odyssey's mission manager at JPL in Pasadena, Calif.
"The spacecraft seems to be performing beautifully, and we're
right on our timeline. This gives us a terrific start on our
odyssey to Mars."
NASA's latest explorer carries three scientific instruments
designed to tell us what the Martian surface is made of and about
its radiation environment: a thermal-emission imaging system, a
gamma ray spectrometer and a Martian radiation environment
experiment. During its cruise to Mars over the next six months,
the spacecraft will turn on and calibrate the instruments. The
spacecraft will also fire its thrusters in five small maneuvers
designed to fine-tune its flight path to Mars. Odyssey will
arrive at Mars on October 24, when it will fire its main engine
and be captured into Mars' orbit.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey
mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Principal investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the
University of Arizona in Tuscon, and NASA's Johnson Space Center,
Houston, Texas, will operate the science instruments. Lockheed
Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., is the prime contractor for
the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission
operations will be conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and
from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena.
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