NASA has released the first set of data taken by the
Mars Odyssey spacecraft to the Planetary Data System, which
will now make the information available to research
scientists through a new online distribution and access
system.

“This release is a major milestone for Mars scientists
worldwide, since the first validated data from our
instruments are now available to the entire scientific
community,” said Dr. R. Stephen Saunders, the Odyssey Project
Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif. “There are fundamentally new kinds of information in
these data sets, including day and night infrared images,
maps of hydrogen in the soil, and radiation hazard data for
future Mars missions.”

The information includes the first six weeks of mapping data
through the end of March, as well as the observations made
during the cruise phase to Mars. The archive consists of
formatted instrument data from the gamma-ray spectrometer and
high-energy neutron spectrometer; Mars maps from the neutron
detectors; about 800 visible and infrared images taken by the
camera system; and radiation measurements from the Martian
radiation environment experiment. New data will be released
to the science community every three months.

The Odyssey data are available through a new online access
system established by the Planetary Data System at:
http://starbrite.jpl.nasa.gov/pds/

The Odyssey data release coupled with the availability of
this new system mark a significant improvement in access to
data from solar system exploration missions. Beginning today,
validated data from all Odyssey instruments will be available
for search and retrieval immediately upon delivery to the
Planetary Data System.

The system will soon integrate data sets from all Mars
missions so researchers can obtain all the data they need at
a “one-stop shopping” Internet site. A guide to the Odyssey
data sets can be found at the Planetary Data System
Geosciences Node at:
http://wufs.wustl.edu/missions/odyssey

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the 2001 Mars
Odyssey mission for NASA’s Office of Space Science in
Washington. Investigators at Arizona State University in
Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson and NASA’s Johnson
Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments.
Additional science partners are located at the Russian
Aviation and Space Agency and at Los Alamos National
Laboratories, New Mexico. Lockheed Martin Astronautics,
Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and
developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are
conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL.

Additional information about the 2001 Mars Odyssey is
available on the Internet at:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/