Mars Odyssey relay operations development

The UHF relay design on the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission has so far returned over 88% of the data from the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) missions, and has far outpaced all expectations in terms of volume and operational flexibility. This has been achieved through close coordination between the Odyssey and MER projects, extensive development, and testing. Post-launch testing was performed with a ground station at Stanford in the cruise phase. Once Odyssey began its science mission, process and block development began. This required allocation of memory resources in a manner that satisfied both the relay users and the Odyssey science mission. Contingency plans were developed and on-board blocks designed to maximize flexibility. Even while searching for the lost Beagle-2, the Odyssey and MER operations performed flawlessly. The development of higher data UHF data rates presented some additional challenges, but led to the flexible and effective configuration that is now in place