Opportunity Mars rover of NASA has set a new distance record in off-Earth roving of 25 miles or 40 kilometers, surpassing the previous record of Lunokhod 2 rover of the Soviet Union.
If the Russian rover incurred driving distance of 24.2 miles or 39 kilometers in less than five months as it landed on Jan. 15, 1973 on the Earth’s moon, the American rover has 25.01 miles or 40.25 kilometers. The calculations were based on images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) cameras, revealing tracks of Lunokhod 2.
"Opportunity has driven farther than any other wheeled vehicle on another world," says John Callas, project manager of Mars Exploration Rover Project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA in Pasadena, California, in a statement.
Callas adds that the recent achievement is remarkable, to think the Opportunity rover was never devised for distance and only planned to drive around one kilometer.
The Opportunity rover obtained an additional driving distance record of 157 feet or 48 meters, which helped surpassed Lunokhod’s feat. The additional distance carried the rover to the western rim of Endeavour Crater, where it studied outcrops on the rim of the crater composed of sulfate-bearing minerals and clay.
These spots are said to be indicating evidence that ancient environments were present but with less-acidic water, as opposed to those studied over at Opportunity rover’s landing site.
"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,” says Callas.
If Opportunity can pursue further the distance of 26.2 miles or around 42.2 kilometers, it will reach “Marathon Valley,” the next major site for scientific investigation. Spacecraft observations circumnavigating the Red Planet imply that many clay materials are seen “exposed close together” at said valley, bounded by steep slopes where relationships among several layers may manifest.
"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,” Steve Squyres, principal investigator of Spirit and Opportunity rovers of NASA, says in a statement.
NASA has ongoing and forthcoming missions to Mars, of which the Mars Exploration Rover project is an element. The agency plans to send a human mission to the Red Planet in 2030s.
