Posted: Tue, Aug 21, 2001, 11:39 AM ET (1539 GMT)
Problems with a radiation detector on NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft have caused project officials to turn off the instrument at least temporarily, JPL announced Monday. The Mars Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE) instrument failed to respond during a scheduled downlink session last week. After efforts to reset the instrument from the ground failed, officials decided to turn off the instrument until after the spacecraft enters orbit around Mars October 23. In the meantime, engineers will try to determine what is wrong with MARIE based on the limited data available, and proposed an action plan to get the experiment working again after Mars orbit insertion. MARIE is designed to measure the radiation environment around Mars in preparation for future human missions to the Red Planet. There are no other problems with the spacecraft or its other instruments.

Related Links:

•  NASA/JPL mission status report
•  2001 Mars Odyssey web site