10 years on Mars

The Chronicler · **on:** January 24, 2014, 08:50:49 PM

Ten years ago today (January 24, 2004), the NASA Mars rover named Opportunity landed on Mars. It's mission, to search for evidence of water, was intended to last for only 90 days. To this day, that rover is still operating and in relatively good shape, having traveled more than 24 miles in it's lifetime to date. And it seems unlikely the mission will be ending anytime soon.

I have to say, that is quite impressive.

Kor · **Reply #1 on:** January 24, 2014, 10:15:37 PM

That is impressive. I doubt the original designers though it would last this long when they were designing it or when it launched.

rhombus · **Reply #2 on:** January 25, 2014, 09:15:01 PM

It is amazing that the rover has exceeded its expected mission life by as much as it has. Its success is especially surprising when one considers the huge temperature variations and extreme climatic conditions that exist on the red planet.

Kor · **Reply #3 on:** January 25, 2014, 10:14:27 PM

Not to mention how far the rover is and that it has to figure out things on it's own to a large extent since a round trip communications takes to long for it to be fully remotely controlled.

Chiletrek · **Reply #4 on:** January 27, 2014, 04:01:06 PM

Hello:
That is a very interesting news. I did forget Opportunity was already there for such a long time, considering the extreme conditions on Mars.

Quite outstanding

.

The Chronicler · **Reply #5 on:** March 28, 2015, 08:25:14 PM

A few days ago, the Opportunity rover passed another significant milestone. It has now become the first man-made object to have traveled the distance of a marathon (over 26 miles (I forget the exact distance)) on another world. And it only took 11 years and 2 months to do that.