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Odyssey heads for Mars

Bruised Lockheed gets reassurance from `2001' author

News Staff and Wire Services

Published April 7, 2001 at midnight

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The Denver-built 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft rocketed away Saturday on a 286 million-mile journey to the Red Planet and what NASA and Lockheed Martin hope will be a mission of redemption.

It is the space program's first launch to Mars since a pair of humiliating failures in 1999.

"My heart's in my throat, but I'm also so excited. We're just hoping for the best," said NASA program scientist Jim Garvin, among some 100 people gathered at the press viewing area at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Garvin noted that every rocket launch is accompanied by exhilaration, as well as trepidation. "But for Mars and the fact this is such a vital step for us to keep the progress going, our sense of electricity is heightened," he said. "There's literally electricity in the air."

Everything appeared to go well as the Colorado-built Boeing Delta II rocket lifted off at the appointed moment at 9:02 a.m. MDT, carrying Mars Odyssey toward its destiny. The weather was perfect for a launch, with a stunningly clear aqua sky.

VIDEO
  • Watch the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft take off for Mars on the Colorado-built Boeing Delta II rocket. Footage courtesy of NASA

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  • Ed Euler, project manager for the Mars '98 missions, discusses the purpose of the Mars Odyssey mission.

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  • Al Herzl, spacecraft development manager for Lockheed Martin, describes the timeframe for Odyssey's mission.

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The 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft is named after the book by Arthur C. Clarke, who e-mailed words of encouragement to Lockheed Martin engineers Friday from his home in Sri Lanka.

Odyssey is quite possibly the most scrutinized spacecraft ever sent to the Red Planet. Its main goal is to search for water at or just beneath the Martian surface, from a 250-mile-high orbit.

"This is a chance to redeem ourselves," said James C. Neuman, who heads the Lockheed Martin Astronautics team that will control the spacecraft from the company's Waterton Canyon plant, southwest of Denver.

Neuman's team also controlled the two Denver-built NASA Mars probes that failed in 1999.

Odyssey is scheduled to reach Mars in late October and slip into orbit around the planet. For 2 1/2 years, it will search for traces of ancient lakes and oceans, probe for ice beneath the barren planet's frigid surface, and look for hot spots that could indicate Yellowstone-like springs.

Odyssey's global maps of minerals and elements will help scientists target the spots that may allow them to someday answer the question: Did primitive life ever gain a foothold on Mars?

Perhaps just as important for NASA and Lockheed Martin is showing the public that the Mars program is viable.

Of the 30 missions sent to Mars by three countries during the past four decades, fewer than one-third have been successful.

NASA's success rate is about 60 percent, but the Russians have fared far worse. Clarke alluded to the Russians' dismal batting average in his Friday e-mail.

For this launch, engineers compiled a list of 22,000 things that have to work just right for the $297 million Odyssey mission to succeed. In the months leading up to launch, NASA and Lockheed Martin double-checked each item.

"I don't know what more we can do to make a successful Mars mission," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for space science.

Odyssey commands will be sent from Waterton Canyon to JPL in Pasadena, Calif., then on to a network of huge antennas that beam the signals into space.

In September 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter ended up in pieces around Mars or smashed on the planet because engineers mixed up English and metric units of measurement. Just 10 weeks later, the Mars Polar Lander crash-landed on Mars and was lost, most likely because of a premature engine shutdown.

"There are a lot of people on the team who worked" on the failed 1999 missions, said George Pace, Odyssey's project manager for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "They want some kind of redemption. They want a chance to show they can make this right."