April 7, 2001: NASA Returns to Mars

Posted by tourdemars to Mars Odyssey at April 24, 2000 12:00 PM

NASA will launch a $135 million satellite to Mars on April 7, 2001, marking the U.S. space agency’s return to the Red Planet after the recent failure of two other martian probes. The spacecraft should arrive at Mars, and go into orbit on October 20, 2001. It will then take 76 days to gradually edge closer to the planet’s surface. By the first week of January 2002 the satellite will be whipping around Mars once every two hours.