2001 Mars Odyssey
A six person team of NASA recruits plans to spend the next year locked in an isolation dome near to simulate life on Mars. Pictured: NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept illustration handout released by NASA, July 24, 2012. Reuters/NASA/Handout

On Tuesday, NASA’s “2001 Mars Odyssey” spacecraft, which is currently orbiting the red planet at an altitude of about 2,400 miles, will complete its 60,000th orbit -- a record worthy of a spacecraft named after the science fiction masterpiece, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” written by Arthur C. Clarke.

The Odyssey spacecraft, which already holds the record of being the longest-surviving continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth, was launched on April 7, 2001. It has been orbiting Mars since Oct. 23, 2001, and has made a number of key discoveries, including the detection of widespread water ice just beneath the surface of the red planet. The presence of shallow, subsurface water ice was later confirmed by instruments aboard the Phoenix lander.

Mars Odyssey
A view of the south pole of Mars from measurements made during the first week of Mars Odyssey Spacecraft mapping, in February, 2002. Odyssey used a suite of gamma ray spectrometer instruments to detect significant amounts of hydrogen near the planet's south pole, which scientists say is due to the presence of ice formed from water. Reuters/NASA/Handout

“This orbital milestone is an opportunity to celebrate Odyssey's many achievements,” Jim Green, NASA’s director of Planetary Science, said, in a statement released last week. “Odyssey will continue to help lay a foundation for the first humans to Mars in the 2030s through NASA's Journey to Mars initiative.”

Observations made by the spacecraft have also helped scientists prepare a high-resolution global map of Mars and study seasonal and year-to-year changes, such as freezing and thawing of carbon dioxide. The spacecraft also acts as a relay for communications between the various rovers and landers on Mars, and Earth. And, despite its age, Odyssey shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Mars-Odyssey-THEMIS-Gale-Crater-Minerals-pia19674-br2
A mosaic image made using data from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter shows the Gale Crater. The diameter of the crater is 96 miles (154 kilometers). NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University

“Upcoming observations will focus on what is happening in the Martian atmosphere in the morning, such as clouds, hazes and fogs, and on frosts on the surface that burn off by later in the day,” Jeffrey Plaut, Odyssey project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in the statement.

Future plans for Odyssey also include using it as a communications relay for NASA and European Space Agency’s landers arriving on Mars in 2016 -- paving the way for future manned missions to the red planet.

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