NASA: Mars Rover Opportunity Reaches Endeavour Crater for Exploration after 3 Year Journey

NASA’s announced that its Mars Exploration Rover “Opportunity” has reached the Endeavour crater where it will study rocks never seen before. The rover traveled for 3 years across the Martian surface from its last location at the Victoria crater to reach its current location.

The Endeavour crater, is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter survey by Opportunity after the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) detected clay minerals that may have formed in an early warmer and wetter period at this site. At Endeavour, scientists expect to see much older rocks and terrains than those examined by Opportunity during its first seven years on Mars.

“We’re soon going to get the opportunity to sample a rock type the rovers haven’t seen yet,” said Matthew Golombek, Mars Exploration Rover science team member, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. “Clay minerals form in wet conditions so we may learn about a potentially habitable environment that appears to have been very different from those responsible for the rocks comprising the plains.”

“NASA is continuing to write remarkable chapters in our nation’s story of exploration with discoveries on Mars and trips to an array of challenging new destinations,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “Opportunity’s findings and data from the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory will play a key role in making possible future human missions to Mars and other places where humans have not yet been.”

Opportunity was launched along with its twin explorer Spirit in 2003 and was only scheduled to operate for about 3 months. That time would have made the mission a success, but 7 years later the two rovers are still exploring the planet. “Our arrival at this destination is a reminder that these rovers have continued far beyond the original three-month mission,” said John Callas, Mars Exploration Rover project manager at JPL.

NASA users the MRO, launched in 2005, from its perch above the Martian surface to help identify targets for the twin rovers to explore, in addition to relaying important scientific data of its own.