NASA's oldest Mars orbiters keep working for decades

What BBN said about it

1. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorNASA has a spacecraft at Mars that was meant to work for less than three years and is still going, the Planetary Society says.

2. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorThat's Mars Odyssey. It launched in two thousand one, and it has now made more than a hundred thousand orbits around Mars, according to NASA.

3. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorA hundred thousand laps. And Wired reports a second orbiter, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has also run far past its plans.

4. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorWhich NASA's lab says sends back more data every week than the other six active Mars missions combined.

5. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorI'd call that a very high-performing team player.

6. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorOdyssey's original science mission ended in two thousand four. It's been on overtime for twenty years.

7. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorOvertime? Lockheed Martin says it became the longest-operating spacecraft ever sent to Mars in twenty ten. That's tenure.

8. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThere is a catch. Its instrument for measuring space radiation for astronauts stopped working in two thousand three, NASA says.

9. 

   Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorI assume the memo reads, the radiation instrument has chosen to pursue other opportunities.

10. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorIn twenty twenty, the White House proposed a three percent cut to the Mars program.

11. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe orbiter kept working through it. Nobody's offered it a raise.