This infographic highlights how much data and imagery NASA’s 2001 Mars rover Odyssey collected during its 23 years of operation around Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s longest-lived Mars robot is on track to reach a new milestone on June 30: completing 100,000 orbits of the Red Planet since launching 23 years ago. In that time, the 2001 Mars Rover Odyssey has mapped the minerals and ice on the Martian surface, identified landing sites for future missions, and relayed data from NASA’s rovers and landers back to Earth.
Scientists recently used the rover’s cameras to capture stunning new images of Olympus Mons, the solar system’s tallest volcano. The images are part of the Odyssey team’s ongoing effort to provide high-altitude images of the Martian horizon. (The first of these images will be released in late 2023.) The images will allow scientists to learn more about Martian clouds and dust in the air, just as astronauts aboard the International Space Station see from Earth.
The latest horizon image, taken on March 11, shows Olympus Mons in full view, a shield volcano that stretches across 373 miles (600 kilometers) at its base and reaches heights of 17 miles (27 kilometers).
![NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey rover captured this single image of Olympus Mons, the solar system's tallest volcano, on March 11, 2024. Not only does the image provide an unprecedented view of the volcano, it also helps scientists study different layers of material in the atmosphere, including clouds and dust. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU NASA's Mars Odyssey rover spots massive volcano as it nears 100,000th orbit](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2024/nasas-mars-odyssey-cap.jpg)
NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey rover captured this single image of Olympus Mons, the solar system’s tallest volcano, on March 11, 2024. Not only does the image provide an unprecedented view of the volcano, it also helps scientists study different layers of material in the atmosphere, including clouds and dust. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
“Olympus Mons normally appears as an elongated shape from the sky, but when we point the spacecraft toward the horizon, we can see its size looming over the landscape in a single image,” said Jeffrey Prout, Odyssey project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who manages the mission. “Not only are the images spectacular, they also provide unique science data.”
Such images not only provide still images of clouds and dust, but if taken over many seasons, can give scientists a more detailed understanding of the Martian atmosphere.
A pale blue band at the bottom of the atmosphere hints at how much dust there is here in the early fall, when dust storms usually begin. The purplish layer above that is likely a mix of the planet’s red dust and bluish water ice clouds. Finally, at the top of the image, a blue-green layer is visible where the water ice clouds reach up to about 31 miles (50 kilometers) into the sky.
How the photo was taken
The probe, named after Arthur C. Clarke’s classic sci-fi novel “2001: A Space Odyssey,” captured the scene with a heat-sensing camera called the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS), built and operated by Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. But because the camera is designed to look down on the surface, photographing the horizon requires special planning.
By firing thrusters around the spacecraft, Odyssey can point THEMIS at different spots on the Martian surface, or rotate slowly to observe Mars’ small moons, Phobos and Deimos.
The recent horizon shots were conceived as an experiment years before NASA’s Phoenix mission in 2008 and the Curiosity rover landed in 2012. As with other Mars landings before and after those missions’ landings, Odyssey played a vital role in relaying data as the rovers made their way to the Martian surface.
Odyssey’s antenna needed to be pointed toward the newly arriving spacecraft and its landing ellipse in order to relay vital engineering data to Earth, and scientists were intrigued when they realized that positioning Odyssey’s antenna for this task would mean that THEMIS would be pointed toward the planet’s horizon.
“We decided to just turn the camera on and see what it was like,” said Steve Sanders, Odyssey’s mission operations spacecraft engineer at Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, which built Odyssey and helps with its day-to-day operations with mission leaders at JPL. “Based on those experiments, we designed a sequence to keep THEMIS’ field of view centered on the horizon as it orbits the planet.”
The secret of long space journeys
What’s the secret behind Odyssey being the longest-running mission in orbit around a planet other than Earth?
“Physics does a lot of the hard work for us,” Sanders said, “but the subtleties have to be managed over and over again.”
These variables include fuel, solar power, and temperature. To ensure Odyssey conserves and uses fuel (hydrazine gas), engineers must calculate how much fuel is left, as the spacecraft does not have a fuel gauge. Odyssey relies on solar power to run its instruments and electronics. This power changes when the spacecraft hides behind Mars for about 15 minutes each orbit. Also, temperatures must remain balanced for all of Odyssey’s instruments to function properly.
“Continuing the mission for this long while maintaining its historic timeline of scientific planning and execution, as well as innovative engineering approaches, requires careful oversight,” said JPL’s Joseph Hunt, Odyssey’s project manager. “We look forward to collecting even more incredible science data in the coming years.”
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