odyssey_update_011018 With just five days to go before NASA's most crucial mission in years reaches its most crucial moment, managers laid out the timetable for the Mars Odyssey Spacecraft's insertion into orbit, slated for Oct. 23.
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At a press conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Thursday, officials also said the craft had successfully performed its last course correction and is on track and ready for its Tuesday evening meeting with the Red Planet.
"We believe we have done everything possible to make this extremely vital mission a success," said Jim Garvin, the lead Mars scientist from NASA headquarters.
Odyssey represents the first attempt to reach Mars since 1999, when two NASA spacecraft were lost. Mars Climate Orbiter failed to go into orbit in 1999 and, few months later, the Mars Polar Lander was lost as it tried to set down.
Matt Landano, project manager for Odyssey, echoed the comments of several NASA officials in stressing that everything humanly possible has been done to insure the success of the mission in the wake of the failures.
"We have trained, we have reviewed, we have tested," Landano said. "After that, we have reviewed, we have trained, and we have tested over again."
David A. Spencer, the Odyssey mission manager, had a lighter comment, but one which was no less serious in its meaning: "My bedtime reading for the last six months has been failure reports from previous missions."
The timetable
On Oct. 11, Odyssey made the final of four course corrections on its 457-million-kilometer journey, firing its thrusters for three seconds to make a speed change of two-tenths of a mile per hour. The commands for the insertion procedure were uploaded from Earth on Monday, Oct. 15.
Spencer laid out the timetable for the insertion into orbit, considered the second of three crucial steps in the mission, the first being launch and the third being a weeks-long aerobraking process that will gradually settle the craft into its final orbit.
- On Sunday, Oct. 21, Odyssey's solar panels will be put into their final position.
- 14 minutes prior to insertion on Tuesday, Oct. 23, the craft's propellant lines, leading to the main engine, will fill.
- With 9 minutes to go, the beach-ball sized propellant tanks will be pressurized.
- 7 minutes before insertion, Odyssey will turn to point the main engine in right direction.
- The main engine will fire for the first time, and 262.8 kilograms (579.4 pounds) of propellant will fuel it for 19.7 minutes.
- At 10:26 ET, a signal should arrive indicating the insertion has begun.
- 10 minutes into burn, Odyssey goes behind Mars.
"The next 20 minutes will likely be the longest 20 minutes of our lives," Spencer said. In an interview last week, Spencer called it "nail biting time."
Then shortly before 11 p.m. ET, the craft should emerge from behind Mars and phone home. Assuming all goes as planned, Odyssey will spend about 1 hour downloading data from the maneuver. By around 1:30 to 2 a.m. ET on Oct. 24, the team should have analyzed the data and announced the fate of the mission.
"We could not be more ready for the events that are about to unfold," Spencer said. "I expect nothing less than a bulls-eye."
The firing of the main engine will brake the spacecraft's speed, slowing and curving its trajectory into an egg-shaped elliptical orbit around the planet. Then through early next year, the spacecraft will repeatedly brush against the top of the atmosphere -- the aerobraking -- to reduce the long, 19-hour elliptical orbit into a shorter, 2-hour circular orbit.
The goal is for the craft to end up approximately 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) above the surface.
The mission
Odyssey will not land on Mars. It is designed to search from above for signs of water near the surface of the Red Planet. It can take pictures in visible light and infrared, which senses heat. The infrared information could prove valuable in spotting potential underground "hot spots" where lava might exist.
If all goes well, the first pictures are expected to be returned and released to the public next February. They will compliment a bevy of images already returned by the Mars Global Surveyor, which has been circling Mars for four years.
Odyssey also carries a radiation instrument, which is currently in a state of dormancy after an unknown glitch.
The Mars Radiation Environment Experiment, called MARIE, would measure potentially harmful radiation near Mars, a critical unknown that will determine how spacecraft, habitats and spacesuits are built for any future human Mars exploration.
The instrument did not respond to commands back in August. Mission managers decided to focus on getting Odyssey to Mars and into a stable orbit before making any more long-distance fix-it attempts.
Last week, the scientist in charge of the instrument, Frank Cucinotta, told SPACE.com that engineers might send new software to fix the problem, once they determine exactly what it is. As of last week, no firm determination had been made.
"We're pretty optimistic" it will function, Cucinotta, a member of the MARIE team, said.
Today, Spencer added that "we've got commands ready to send to the instrument."
Odyssey was launched April 7.
ODYSSEY OCTOBER: Throughout October, SPACE.com explores Mars, the Mars Odyssey mission, and the possibility of human space travel. Click here for our Odyssey Special Report.
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