Delta Launches
Odyssey to Mars
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A Boeing Delta 2
7925 successfully launched NASA’s Mars Odyssey from Pad 17A at
Cape Canaveral Air Station at 15:02 UTC (8:02:22 a.m. PDT) on April
7. The probe has a dry mass of 376 kg (829 lbm) and carries 349 kg
(769 lbm) of propellant. The spacecraft entered a 195 x 215 km x 52
degree  parking
orbit 10 minutes after launch. After a 12 minute coast the Delta
second stage fired again and separated from the third stage, to
place the spacecraft on an Earth escape trajectory. The second
stage's final orbit was 177 x 1805 km x 40.0 degrees.
The 758 kg (1671
lbm), Lockheed Martin-built spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at
Mars on October 24. It will fire its main engine for 22 minutes and
slip into an elliptical orbit around the planet lasting about 17
hours every revolution. Over the following 76 days, the  spacecraft
will graze the upper atmosphere of Mars 273 times, aerobraking to
achieve a two-hour circular polar orbit at an altitude of 400 km
(216 nmi). The main science gathering mission is scheduled to last
from January 2002 through July 2004.
The US$297 million
mission plans to map the chemical composition of Mars searching for
the most interesting locations on the planet where future probes
might be sent to search for water and possible evidence of past
life. The spacecraft carries a 6-meter boom with a gamma ray
spectrometer for remote sensing of Martian surface mineralogy, as
well as an infrared imager and a radiation environment monitor. The
Mars Odyssey will also provide a communications relay for future
Mars landers.
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