NASA’s Odyssey orbiter, the oldest spacecraft operating in orbit around Mars, was successfully rebooted on Wednesday, a procedure that seems to have restored the probe’s backup systems (Illustration: NASA/JPL)

NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter woke up refreshed on Wednesday, after being rebooted to clear its memory of the accumulated effects of space radiation.

The reboot also restored Odyssey’s “B-side”, back-up systems that could be used if any problems were to arise in the probe’s primary equipment. A power supply on Odyssey’s “B-side” has been down since March 2007, but engineers suspected a reboot would restore the instrument.

“For nearly two years, we have not known for certain whether the backup systems would be usable,” Philip Varghese, Odyssey’s project manager, said in a statement. “This successful reboot has allowed us to ascertain their health and availability for future use.”

‘Not risk-free’

Odyssey has been orbiting Mars since 2001. The orbiter’s last reboot was in October 2003.


Although a reboot is “not a risk-free event”, continuing to operate the craft without refreshing its systems would have left it vulnerable to memory flaws, NASA said last week. Incoming charged particles from space, called cosmic rays, can cause errors in Odyssey’s on-board memory that accumulate with time.

A team is now restoring the spacecraft to full function, and the craft’s science instruments are expected to be back to studying Mars by next week.

Spacecraft highlights

Odyssey, the longest-serving spacecraft currently orbiting Mars, has been the prime communications relay for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. (If Odyssey were to fail, the rovers could relay data through NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter or Europe’s Mars Express orbiter. They also have the capability to relay data directly to Earth.)

The probe paved the way for the agency’s recent Mars Phoenix lander by detecting vast amounts of frozen water beneath the surface near the planet’s poles.

Recently, Odyssey found the chemical fingerprints of what might have been an ancient ocean on Mars, as well as the planet’s first known chloride salt deposits, which may have preserved evidence of past Martian life.

NASA originally planned to conduct the reboot on Monday, but the procedure was delayed in order to analyse a rise in temperature in the probe’s star camera, which uses the locations of stars to pinpoint the probe’s orientation.

Engineers later found a temporarily stuck heater circuit was responsible for the readings. The circuit was switched off before the reboot.