2001 Mars Odyssey

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 a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. The data Odyssey obtains is intended to help answer the question of whether life once existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Curiosity rover, and previously the Mars Exploration Rovers and Phoenix lander, to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of his and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

2001 Mars Odyssey

Artist's impression of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft
Mission type	Mars orbiter
Operator	NASA / JPL
COSPAR ID	2001-013A
SATCAT no.	26734
Website	mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/
Mission duration	Elasped: 23 years, 6 months, 14 days from launch 2001 Mars Odyssey Media Summary of Mars Odyssey mission start The spacecraft encapsulated in Delta II rocket fairing Mars—horizon views (video; 1:24; Odyssey orbiter; THEMIS camera; 9 May 2023) Animation of 2001 Mars Odyssey's trajectory around Sun      2001 Mars Odyssey ·       Earth ·       Mars Animation of 2001 Mars Odyssey's trajectory around Mars from October 24, 2001, to October 24, 2002       2001 Mars Odyssey ·       Mars 22 years, 11 months, 27 days at Mars