14 DAY TRIAL // The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity is celebrating its 8th anniversary on the surface of the Red Planet today, January 24. The spacecraft took off aboard a Delta II 7925 rocket on July 7, 2003, and landed successfully in Meridiani Planum on January 24, 2004.
Originally scheduled to endure on the Martian surface for only 90 sols (92.5 days) and to drive for just 600 meters, the rover is still going strong even now, 2,922 days and 21.35 miles (34.4 kilometers) later.
Since arriving at Mars, the machine provided us with a wealth of data that no one expected. Mission controllers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) had to develop new protocols in order to operate the rover for so long, train new drivers and develop new software for the resilient machine.
“It is amazing. I have to remind myself – my God, this thing is still going! But more importantly, it is still very productive on the surface,” JPL Opportunity Project Manager John Callas says.