science · 07 April 2000 · 25 years ago
In 2000, NASA launched the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft on a Delta 2 rocket. Stunning images were sent back by the rocket's TV cameras during its fiery ascent. Odyssey would travel 286 million miles before entering orbit around the red planet on 24 Oct 2001. Its primary mission was to look for water in the form of ice under the Martian surface and to create a thermal map of the planet. From an altitude of about 250 miles, the spacecraft was to search for traces of hydrogen, which could point out the existence of water.
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