sciencetech-blog

comments

Since May 1973 the record for the longest distance traveled on an extraterrestrial world has been held by the Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 moon rover, which covered 24 miles (39 kilometres).

But that record stands no more as Nasa's Opportunity rover is now reported to have covered over 25 miles (40 km) on Mars, setting a new off-Earth driving record.

And in more than ten years on the surface the rover is still going strong, despite initially being planned only to travel 0.62 miles (one kilometre).

Nasa's Opportunity rover, illustration shown, has now traveled over 25 miles (40 kilometres) on Mars. The distance, which has taken 10 years, is a new record for off-Earth driving. The previous record was held by the Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 moon rover, which covered 24 miles (39 kilometres) on the lunar surface

'Opportunity has driven farther than any other wheeled vehicle on another world,' said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas, of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. 

'This is so remarkable considering Opportunity was intended to drive about one kilometer [0.62 miles] and was never designed for distance. 

'But what is really important is not how many miles the rover has racked up, but how much exploration and discovery we have accomplished over that distance.'

A drive of 157 feet (48 metres) on 27 July put Opportunity's total odometry at 25.01 miles (40.25 kilometers).

This month's driving brought the rover southward along the western rim of Endeavour Crater. 

The rover had driven more than 20 miles (32 km) before arriving at Endeavour Crater in 2011, where it has examined outcrops on the crater's rim containing clay and sulfate-bearing minerals. 

The sites are yielding evidence of ancient environments with less acidic water than those examined at Opportunity's landing site.

If the rover can continue to operate the distance of a marathon - 26.2 miles (about 42.2 km) - it will approach the next major investigation site mission scientists have dubbed 'Marathon Valley'.

Observations from spacecraft orbiting Mars suggest several clay minerals are exposed close together at this valley site, surrounded by steep slopes where the relationships among different layers may be evident.

Nasa's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, working on Mars since January 2004, passed 25 miles of total driving on 27 July 2014. The gold line on this map shows Opportunity's route from the landing site inside Eagle Crater (upper left) to its location after the 27 July drive

This chart provides a comparison of the distances driven by various wheeled vehicles on the surface of Mars and Earth's moon. Of the vehicles shown, Nasa's Mars rovers Opportunity and Curiosity are still active and the totals listed are distances driven as of 28 July 2014

The Russian Lunokhod 2 rover, model shown, landed on Earth's moon on 15 January 1973, where it drove about 24.2 miles (39 kilometers) in less than five months, according to calculations recently made using images from Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) cameras that revealed its tracks

'The Lunokhod missions still stand as two signature accomplishments of what I think of as the first golden age of planetary exploration, the 1960s and '70s,' said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and principal investigator for Nasa's twin Mars rovers, Opportunity and Spirit.

'We're in a second golden age now, and what we've tried to do on Mars with Spirit and Opportunity has been very much inspired by the accomplishments of the Lunokhod team on the moon so many years ago. 

'It has been a real honor to follow in their historical wheel tracks.'

As Opportunity neared the mileage record earlier this year, the rover team chose the name Lunokhod 2 for a crater about 20 feet (6 metres) in diameter on the outer slope of Endeavour's rim on Mars.

The Mars Exploration Rover Project is one element of Nasa's ongoing and future Mars missions preparing for a human mission to the planet in the 2030s.