NEWS | March 24, 2015
NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover Finishes Marathon, Clocks in at Just Over 11 Years
The rover team at JPL plans a marathon-length relay run at the laboratory next week to celebrate.
The long-lived rover surpassed the marathon mark during a drive of 153 feet (46.5 meters). Last year, Opportunity became the long-distance champion of all off-Earth vehicles when it topped the previous record set by the former Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 moon rover.
"This mission isn't about setting distance records, of course; it's about making scientific discoveries on Mars and inspiring future explorers to achieve even more," said Steve Squyres, Opportunity principal investigator at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "Still, running a marathon on Mars feels pretty cool."
JPL manages the Mars rover projects for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Mars Exploration Rover Project, NASA's newer Curiosity Mars rover, and three active NASA Mars orbiters are part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, which seeks to characterize and understand Mars as a dynamic system, including its present and past environment, climate cycles, geology and biological potential. In parallel, NASA is developing the human spaceflight capabilities needed for its journey to Mars.
For more information about Opportunity, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/rovers
http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/
http://twitter.com/MarsRovers
http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers
Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov