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On This Day in 2004: NASA's Opportunity Lands on Mars
January 24, 2023 at 04:52 AM EST
By WeatherBug Meteorologist, Matt Mehallow
On this day in 2004, NASA’s Opportunity rover landed on Mars soon after its twin rover Spirit. Opportunity would go on to operate for almost 15 years, setting several records and making several key discoveries.
The spacecraft carrying Opportunity plunged into the Martian atmosphere on January 16, 2004 before landing on January 25, 2004. Opportunity was the second of the two rovers launched in 2003 to land on Mars and begin traversing the Red Planet in search of signs of ancient water.
Spirit and Opportunity represented the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, which was part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. The twin missions’ main scientific objective was to search for a range of rocks and soil types and then look for clues for past water activity on Mars. Each rover, about the size of a golf cart, was sent to opposite sides of the planet in locations that were believed to have been impacted by liquid water in the past.
The plan was for the rovers to explore and perform on-site geological investigations. Each rover would take photographs with mast-mounted cameras about five feet off the ground providing 360-degree stereoscopic views of the terrain. They were each equipped with a suite of instruments deployed on a robotic arm, known as the Instrument Deployment Device. The arm would place the instruments directly against soil or rock and activate the instruments.
Both Spirit and Opportunity lived well beyond their planned 90-day missions. Opportunity worked nearly 15 years on Mars, breaking the record for most miles traveled on another planet. Opportunity had traveled more than 28 miles by the time it reached its final resting spot on Mars in Perseverance Valley in June 2018.
Opportunity and Spirit rovers was one of the most successful interplanetary missions in NASA history. Both rovers found evidence that long ago Mars was wetter and conditions at Mars could have sustained microbial life. Data obtained from the rovers allowed mission scientists to reconstruct an ancient past when Mars was covered with water.
Opportunity rover stopped communicating with Earth when a severe Mars dust storm obscured its location in June 2018. After more than a thousand attempts to restore contact, Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory made their last attempt to revive Opportunity on Tuesday, February 13, 2019, but were ultimately unsuccessful.
Sources: mars.nasa.gov, NASA
Image: An artist's concept portrays a NASA Mars Exploration Rover on the surface of Mars. (NASA)
The spacecraft carrying Opportunity plunged into the Martian atmosphere on January 16, 2004 before landing on January 25, 2004. Opportunity was the second of the two rovers launched in 2003 to land on Mars and begin traversing the Red Planet in search of signs of ancient water.
Spirit and Opportunity represented the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, which was part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. The twin missions’ main scientific objective was to search for a range of rocks and soil types and then look for clues for past water activity on Mars. Each rover, about the size of a golf cart, was sent to opposite sides of the planet in locations that were believed to have been impacted by liquid water in the past.
The plan was for the rovers to explore and perform on-site geological investigations. Each rover would take photographs with mast-mounted cameras about five feet off the ground providing 360-degree stereoscopic views of the terrain. They were each equipped with a suite of instruments deployed on a robotic arm, known as the Instrument Deployment Device. The arm would place the instruments directly against soil or rock and activate the instruments.
Both Spirit and Opportunity lived well beyond their planned 90-day missions. Opportunity worked nearly 15 years on Mars, breaking the record for most miles traveled on another planet. Opportunity had traveled more than 28 miles by the time it reached its final resting spot on Mars in Perseverance Valley in June 2018.
Opportunity and Spirit rovers was one of the most successful interplanetary missions in NASA history. Both rovers found evidence that long ago Mars was wetter and conditions at Mars could have sustained microbial life. Data obtained from the rovers allowed mission scientists to reconstruct an ancient past when Mars was covered with water.
Opportunity rover stopped communicating with Earth when a severe Mars dust storm obscured its location in June 2018. After more than a thousand attempts to restore contact, Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory made their last attempt to revive Opportunity on Tuesday, February 13, 2019, but were ultimately unsuccessful.
Sources: mars.nasa.gov, NASA
Image: An artist's concept portrays a NASA Mars Exploration Rover on the surface of Mars. (NASA)