Mars Odyssey Mission Status 23 May 2001

NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft performed its first
trajectory correction maneuver this morning as it fired its
thrusters to fine-tune its flight path for arrival at Mars in
October.

Odyssey fired its thrusters for 82 seconds at 10:30 a.m.
Pacific time, which changed the spacecraft’s velocity by 3.6
meters per second (8.1 miles per hour).

“The maneuver executed as planned, and we are very
pleased with the spacecraft performance,” said David A.
Spencer, mission manager for 2001 Mars Odyssey at NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “Due to the favorable
launch we received, this maneuver was much smaller than
planned pre-launch. This will allow us to reach Mars with our
propellant tanks nearly full, and we will make good use of the
extra fuel.”

The principal investigator for the high energy
neutron detector instrument reports the detection of gamma ray
bursts, occurring on May 8 and May 17. Comparing these
measurements with similar measurements from other spacecraft
allows scientists to determine the direction of the burst
sources. The high energy neutron detector and the companion
neutron spectrometer instrument also detected streams of
particles and radiation from enhanced solar activity on May
20.

Odyssey is currently about 14.3 million kilometers (8.9
million miles) from Earth and traveling at a speed of about 29
kilometers per second (about 65,700 miles per hour) relative
to the Sun.

The Mars Odyssey mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington,
D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena. The Odyssey spacecraft was built by
Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver.