April 7, 2001: NASA launches a spacecraft designed to last a few years. Twenty-five years later, it's still the backbone of Mars exploration.

It's 11:02 AM at Cape Canaveral. A Delta II rocket clears the tower, and Mission Control erupts—not just in excitement, but pure relief. NASA's last two Mars missions had crashed and burned (literally one disappeared because someone confused metric and imperial units). This launch couldn't fail.

The Mars Odyssey was heading for a 200-day, 286-million-mile journey to the Red Planet. But getting there was only half the battle. It had to survive aerobraking—using Mars's atmosphere as a brake pad while traveling at insane speeds. One miscalculation and the spacecraft would burn up instead of slip into orbit.

It worked. And then it kept working.

Fast forward to 2026: the  ...