Spacecraft launched on Mars mission

The latest mission to Mars has blasted off from Earth to start its seven-month journey to the red planet.

The Mars Odyssey, named after Arthur C Clarke's science fiction classic, will orbit Mars looking for signs of water and laying the foundations for plans to land robotic vehicles on it in 2003.

It is the first spacecraft to be sent to Mars since an embarrassing double failure in 1999, when two missions crashed, one because engineers had confused metric and imperial units.

Nasa chiefs say today's launch is critical and reorganised their programme in a bid to prevent a repeat of the 1999 debacle.

Today the 300 million dollar (£208m) spaceship blasted off without a hitch from Cape Canaveral in Florida to begin its 286 million-mile odyssey to Mars.

It will arrive in October and start work in January, when it will orbit the planet mapping its chemical make-up.

It will also take measurements of radiation which will be used to assess how astronauts could one day be safely put on Mars.

"Mars continues to surprise us at every turn," said Dr Ed Weiler of Nasa.

"We expect Odyssey to remove some of the uncertainties and help us plan where we must go with future missions."