A veteran Mars probe received a two-year mission
extension though Sept. 2010 to keep watch over the red planet.
NASA's Mars Odyssey represents the longest-serving of six
spacecraft currently orbiting Mars, after first reaching the planet in 2001. Its
new extended mission requires changing orbit to gain a better
vantage point for doing infrared mapping of Martian minerals.
The first year of the two-year extended mission carries a
price tag of $11 million through Sept. 2009, said Guy Webster, NASA spokesperson at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
An orbital adjustment should allow Odyssey to look down
at sites in mid-afternoon rather than late afternoon. The spacecraft's thermal
camera could then better detect infrared radiation from warmer rocks to better
identify them.
"This will allow us to do much more sensitive
detection and mapping
of minerals," said Jeffrey Plaut, a Mars Odyssey scientist at JPL.
However, the shift to mid-afternoon is also expected to
halt usage of an instrument in Odyssey's Gamma Ray Spectrometer. The gamma ray
detector requires the later-hour orbit to avoid overheating a critical
component.
Odyssey began its course change by firing up its
thrusters for almost six minutes on Sept. 30, the last day of its second
two-year extension.
"This was our biggest maneuver since 2002, and it
went well," said Gaylon McSmith, Odyssey mission manager at JPL.
"The spacecraft is in good health. The propellant supply is adequate for
operating through at least 2015."
The spacecraft's orbit is synchronized with the sun, so
that local solar time on Mars has been about 5 p.m. wherever Odyssey flew over
from the north pole to south pole. On the flipside, local time has been roughly
5 a.m. as the spacecraft flew from south to north.
The time should gradually change to somewhere between
2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. over the next year or so, as Odyssey's overhead pass gets
earlier by about 20 seconds per day.
Odyssey's overall mission so far has helped detect large
quantities of water-ice
near the surface in the higher latitudes of Mars, which led to NASA's Phoenix
Mars Lander mission. The spacecraft helped keep
an eye on Phoenix as the lander descended to the surface, and continues to
relay information from Phoenix back to Earth.
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