Mars odyssey ready to go today

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Cool, let's hope it works this time. Do you think Martians are shooting them down?

LINK"

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), April 07, 2001

Answers

This so-called mission is an elaborate farce orchestrated by Industrial Light and Magic.

-- (nemesis@awol.com), April 07, 2001.

I'd have to agree with nemesis on this one. I mean, just look at this picture. You can clearly see it's computer-animated.

Do they think we'd be duped AGAIN?

(I, too, hope it works this time. This is very cool.)

-- (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), April 07, 2001.


Woo hoo!! On it's way:

(Of course, this is probably faked as well ;-))

-- (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), April 07, 2001.



Odyssey embarks on a 460 million kilometre journey

The Link to the story here

Mars mission lifts off

Saturday, 7 April, 2001, 17:19 GMT 18:19 UK

The latest mission to Mars by the American space agency, Nasa, has taken off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Everything went smoothly as the Delta rocket lifted off on schedule carrying Mars Odyssey.

"Absolutely fantastic," said Nasa's Ed Weiler following the launch.

Officials are hoping that Odyssey, which is due to reach Mars in October, will prove a success following the humiliating losses of two similar probes in 1999.

After making a 460 million kilometre journey through space, the orbiter is expected to reach Mars in January 2002.

Data collection


A two-year survey looking for ice

The craft will carry a suite of scientific instruments designed to examine from orbit the chemical make-up of the planet's surface and the composition of the Martian surface.

Odyssey will collect images that will be used to identify the minerals present in the soils and rocks on the surface.

Nasa is hoping that the information collected will give clues to the planet's climate history and help determine whether life has ever existed on the Martian surface.

It will also collect data on background radiation to help assess the risks to any future human explorers.

Once it has completed its mission, the Odyssey has the potential to become a communications relay for future Mars landers.

But this mission has been scaled down because of the loss of two spacecraft in 1999 - the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander.

This time Nasa decided to forgo the lander and use only the orbiter, as it seems the lost craft experienced landing problems.

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 crashlanded on the planet and was lost, most likely because of a premature engine shutdown.

To avoid another fiasco, Nasa has spent millions of extra dollars on Odyssey, boosting the total mission cost to $297 million, and added dozens of extra sets of eyes to the project.

About 22,000 parameters in the computer software, any of which could doom the mission if wrong, were double-checked.

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), April 07, 2001.

Try the photo again...



-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), April 07, 2001.



It works here

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), April 07, 2001.

screw it

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), April 07, 2001.

See if this works (the link said the post was missing):

Here's hoping.....

-- (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), April 07, 2001.


my hero...

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), April 07, 2001.

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