Posted: Thu, Mar 14, 2002, 7:52 AM ET (1252 GMT)
An instrument on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft that malfunctioned last year is working again, NASA reported Wednesday. The Martian Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE) started returning data Wednesday afternoon, several days after engineers fixed the malfunctioning instrument. MARIE is an instrument designed to study the tradition environment around Mars, data that can be used to prepare for eventual human missions to the planet. MARIE malfunctioned en route to Mars in August and, after initial efforts to restore the instrument, project officials decided to wait until the spacecraft entered its primary science orbit around the planet before resume efforts to fix the instrument. Odyssey's two other instruments, a camera system and gamma ray and neutron spectrometer, continue to work well.

Related Links:

•  Mars Odyssey status report from JPL
•  Mars Odyssey web site