[meteorite-list] Hilltop Panorama Marks Mars Rover's 11th Anniversary

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4455

Hilltop Panorama Marks Mars Rover's 11th Anniversary
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
January 22, 2015

A panorama from one of the highest elevations that NASA's Mars Exploration 
Rover Opportunity has reached in its 11 years on Mars includes the U.S. 
flag at the summit.

The view is from the top of "Cape Tribulation," a raised section of the 
rim of Endeavour Crater. The panorama spans the interior of the 14-mile-wide 
(22-kilometer-wide) crater and extends to the rim of another crater on 
the horizon.

Opportunity has driven 25.9 miles (41.7 kilometers) since it landed in 
the Meridiani Planum region of Mars on Jan. 25, 2004 (Universal Time, 
which was Jan. 24, PST). That is farther than any other off-Earth surface 
vehicle has driven. The rover's work on Mars was initially planned for 
three months. During that prime mission and for more than a decade of 
bonus performance in extended missions, Opportunity has returned compelling 
evidence about wet environments on ancient Mars.

Opportunity has been exploring Endeavour's western rim since 2011. From 
a low segment of the rim that it crossed in mid-2013, called "Botany Bay," 
it climbed about 440 feet (about 135 meters) in elevation to reach the 
top of Cape Tribulation. That's about 80 percent the height of the Washington 
Monument.

The U.S. flag is printed on the aluminum cable guard of the rover's rock 
abrasion tool, which is used for grinding away weathered rock surfaces 
to expose fresh interior material for examination. The flag is intended 
as a memorial to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade 
Center in New York. The aluminum was recovered from the site of the Twin 
Towers in the weeks following the attacks. Workers at Honeybee Robotics 
in lower Manhattan, less than a mile from World Trade Center, were making 
the rock abrasion tool for Opportunity and NASA's twin Mars Exploration 
Rover, Spirit, in September 2001.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute 
of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project 
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information 
about Opportunity and Spirit, 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


Media Contact

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

2015-030