Nasa's Odyssey probe has set a new record for the longest mission to Mars after 3,340 days in orbit. The robotic spacecraft - named after the Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C.Clarke film 2001: A Space Odyssey - entered Martian orbit on October 24, 2001 on a $300 million mission to scour the Red Planet for evidence of water and volcanic activity. Its discovery of evidence of water ice below the 4.6 billion year-old planet's surface earned it an esteemed place in space exploration history and advanced scientists' quest to determine whether life ever existed there.   01.jpg (21.08 KB. 468x286 - viewed 2 times.)And by snapping 21,000 high-resolution images, it has assisted in the creation of the most comprehensive map of the Martian surface, as well as relaying data from other probes back to Earth. Its 3,340th day in orbit, completed on Wednesday, means that it has surpassed a previous longevity record set by Nasa's Mars Global Surveyor in 2006. Bob Berry, Odyssey programme manager at Lockheed Martin, the aerospace company that created Odyssey and operates it for Nasa, said: 'Hundreds of people who built the Odyssey spacecraft here, in addition to the much smaller crew operating it today, have great pride in seeing the spacecraft achieve this record.' Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, making it a close neighbour of Earth in space terms. Yet the journey there was still 285,000 miles. On December 20, Odyssey will make its 40,000th lap of Mars, notching up a new milestone in its multi-billion mile mission. Odyssey's record-breaking flight pales compared with Nasa's long-running Voyager 1 spacecraft which has been flying and sending back information to Earth for more han 33 years. It is no reaching the outer edges of our solar system and will soon reach open interstellar space.  | ||
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