[meteorite-list] NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover Passes Marathon Distance

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4521

NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover Passes Marathon Distance
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
March 24, 2015

There was no tape draped across a finish line, but NASA is celebrating 
a win. The agency's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity completed its first 
Red Planet marathon Tuesday -- 26.219 miles (42.195 kilometers) - with 
a finish time of roughly 11 years and two months.

"This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance 
of a marathon on the surface of another world," said John Callas, Opportunity 
project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. 
"A first time happens only once."

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."

Opportunity's original three-month prime mission in 2004 yielded evidence 
of environments with liquid water soaking the ground and flowing on planet's 
surface. As the rover continued to operate far beyond expectations for 
its lifespan, scientists chose the rim of Endeavour Crater as a long-term 
destination. Since 2011, examinations of Endeavour's rim have provided 
information about ancient wet conditions less acidic, and more favorable 
for microbial life, than the environment that left clues found earlier 
in the mission.

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://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov

Follow the project on social media at:

http://twitter.com/MarsRovers

http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers


Media Contact

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

Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov 

2015-097