NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter captures huge volcano, nears 100,000 orbits

NASA’s longest-lived Mars robotic is about to mark a brand new milestone on June 30: 100,000 journeys across the Purple Planet since launching 23 years in the past. Throughout that point, the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter has been mapping minerals and ice throughout the Martian floor, figuring out touchdown websites for future missions, and relaying information to Earth from NASA’s rovers and landers.

Scientists lately used the orbiter’s digital camera to take a shocking new picture of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano within the solar system. The picture is a part of a seamless effort by the Odyssey crew to offer high-altitude views of the planet’s horizon. (The primary of those views was revealed in late 2023.) Just like the attitude of Earth astronauts get aboard the Worldwide House Station, the view permits scientists to be taught extra about clouds and airborne dust on Mars.

Taken on March 11, the latest horizon picture captures Olympus Mons in all its glory. With a base that sprawls throughout 373 miles (600 kilometers), the protect volcano rises to a peak of 17 miles (27 kilometers).

“Usually we see Olympus Mons in slim strips from above, however by turning the spacecraft towards the horizon we are able to see in a single image how giant it looms over the panorama,” mentioned Odyssey’s challenge scientist, Jeffrey Plaut of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission. “Not solely is the picture spectacular, it additionally offers us with distinctive science information.”

Along with providing a freeze body of clouds and dust, such photographs, when taken throughout many seasons, can provide scientists a extra detailed understanding of the Martian ambiance.

A bluish-white band on the backside of the ambiance hints at how a lot dust was current at this location throughout early fall, a interval when dust storms usually begin kicking up. The purplish layer above that was probably as a result of a mix of the planet’s crimson dust with some bluish water-ice clouds. Lastly, towards the highest of the picture, a blue-green layer will be seen the place water-ice clouds attain up about 31 miles (50 kilometers) into the sky.

How they took the image

Named after Arthur C. Clarke’s traditional science-fiction novel “2001: A House Odyssey,” the orbiter captured the scene with a heat-sensitive digital camera referred to as the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, which Arizona State College in Tempe constructed and operates. However as a result of the digital camera is supposed to look down on the floor, getting a horizon shot takes additional planning.

By firing thrusters positioned across the spacecraft, Odyssey can level THEMIS at totally different components of the floor and even slowly roll over to view Mars’ tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos.

The latest horizon imaging was conceived as an experiment a few years in the past throughout the landings of NASA’s Phoenix mission in 2008 and Curiosity rover in 2012. As with different Mars landings earlier than and after these missions touched down, Odyssey performed an essential position relaying information because the spacecraft barreled towards the floor.

To relay their very important engineering information to Earth, Odyssey’s antenna needed to be aimed towards the newly arriving spacecraft and their touchdown ellipses. Scientists have been intrigued after they observed that positioning Odyssey’s antenna for the duty meant that THEMIS could be pointed on the planet’s horizon.

“We simply determined to show the digital camera on and see the way it appeared,” mentioned Odyssey’s mission operations spacecraft engineer, Steve Sanders of Lockheed Martin House in Denver. Lockheed Martin constructed Odyssey and helps conduct day-to-day operations alongside the mission leads at JPL. “Based mostly on these experiments, we designed a sequence that retains THEMIS’s field-of-view centered on the horizon as we go across the planet.”

The key to an extended space odyssey

What’s Odyssey’s secret to being the longest regularly energetic mission in orbit round a planet apart from Earth?

“Physics does quite a lot of the arduous work for us,” Sanders mentioned. “However it’s the subtleties we’ve to handle many times.”

These variables embody gasoline, solar energy, and temperature. To make sure Odyssey makes use of its gasoline (hydrazine gasoline) sparingly, engineers need to calculate how a lot is left because the spacecraft does not have a gasoline gauge. Odyssey depends on solar energy to function its devices and electronics. This energy varies when the spacecraft disappears behind Mars for about quarter-hour per orbit. And temperatures want to remain balanced for all of Odyssey’s devices to work correctly.

“It takes cautious monitoring to maintain a mission going this lengthy whereas sustaining a historic timeline of scientific planning and execution—and revolutionary engineering practices,” mentioned Odyssey’s challenge supervisor, Joseph Hunt of JPL. “We’re wanting ahead to accumulating extra nice science within the years forward.”