Take One Minute of your time to marvel at the longevity of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Since 2001, it’s been monitoring seasonal changes on Mars from year to year and making detailed maps of most of the planet. In 2002, the spacecraft detected hydrogen just below the surface throughout Mars’ high-latitude regions. The deduction that the hydrogen is in frozen water prompted the launch of NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which confirmed the theory in 2008. Odyssey also carried the first experiment sent to Mars specifically to prepare for human missions, and found radiation levels around the planet from solar flares and cosmic rays are two to three times higher than around Earth. Odyssey also has served as a communication relay, handling most of the data sent home by Phoenix and NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Odyssey became the middle link for continuous observation of Martian weather by NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. “Odyssey has proved itself to be a great spacecraft, but what really enables a spacecraft to reach this sort of accomplishment is the people behind it,” said Gaylon McSmith, Odyssey project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “This is a tribute to the whole Odyssey team.” Odyssey will support the 2012 landing of the Mars Science Laboratory and surface operations of that mission. Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity rover, will assess whether its landing …