[meteorite-list] NASA's Veteran Mars Rover Ready to Start 10th Year (Opportunity)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:03:51 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201301231703.r0NH3pE5002178_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-030

NASA's Veteran Mars Rover Ready to Start 10th Year
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
January 22, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, one of
the twin rovers that bounced to airbag-cushioned safe landings on Mars
nine years ago this week, is currently examining veined rocks on the rim
of an ancient crater.

Opportunity has driven 22.03 miles (35.46 kilometers) since it landed in
the Meridiani Planum region of Mars on Jan. 24, 2004, PST (Jan. 25,
Universal Time). Its original assignment was to keep working for three
months, drive about 2,000 feet (600 meters) and provide the tools for
researchers to investigate whether the area's environment had ever been
wet. It landed in a backyard-size bowl, Eagle Crater. During those first
three months, it transmitted back to Earth evidence that water long ago
soaked the ground and flowed across the surface.

Since then, the mission's team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., has driven Opportunity across the plains of Meridiani
to successively larger craters for access to material naturally exposed
from deeper, older layers of Martian history.

Opportunity has operated on Mars 36 times longer than the three months
planned as its prime mission.

"What's most important is not how long it has lasted or even how far it
has driven, but how much exploration and scientific discovery
Opportunity has accomplished," said JPL's John Callas, manager of NASA's
Mars Exploration Rover Project. The project has included both
Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, which ceased operations in 2010.

This month, Opportunity is using cameras on its mast and tools on its
robotic arm to investigate outcrops on the rim of Endeavour Crater, 14
miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. Results from this area of the rim,
called "Matijevic Hill," are providing information about a different,
possibly older wet environment, less acidic than the conditions that
left clues the rover found earlier in the mission.

Timed with the anniversary of the landing, the rover team has prepared a
color panorama of the Matijevic Hill area. The image is online at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA16703 .

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. JPL also manages the Mars Science Laboratory
Project and its rover, Curiosity.

For more information about Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers
and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . You can follow the project on
Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and
http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2013-030
Received on Wed 23 Jan 2013 12:03:51 PM PST