Opportunity, a NASA rover, marks a milestone in the Mars marathon.
While it won’t be breaking any personal records for runners on Earth, NASA’s long-serving Mars rover Opportunity set an important precedent on Tuesday when it completed the first-ever Martian marathon, clocking in at 26.219 miles (42 kilometers).
Even though the robot needed 11 years and 2 months to complete the task, NASA has achieved a noteworthy milestone.
“This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance of a marathon on the surface of another world,” said John Callas, Opportunity project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
“First times only occur once.”
In terms of distance, it outperformed the Lunokhod 2 lunar rover from the Soviet era, which held the previous record.
The Opportunity project’s chief investigator, Steve Squires of Cornell University, stated, “Of course, this mission isn’t about setting distance records.” It’s still kind of cool to run a marathon on Mars, though.
Finding of water
Arriving on the Red Planet on January 25, 2004, the intrepid rover-that-could has long since defied expectations. Its “original three-month prime mission”
Soon after embarking on its mission, Opportunity found indications of groundwater and running water on the otherwise deserted world.
Opportunity has been traveling over the massive Endeavor crater for the past four years, and it is currently near the rim of this crater. It sits currently in Marathon Valley, named after the rover’s achievement.
It will work to learn more about our nearest planetary neighbor, including “its present and past environment, climate cycles, geology, and biological potential,” NASA stated in a statement. It will do this in conjunction with its sister rover Curiosity and three Mars orbiters.
In 2010, communication between NASA’s Spirit rover and ground control was lost during its previous stay on Mars.
For a manned journey to Mars, the space agency is also developing human spaceflight capabilities.
To commemorate Opportunity’s milestone, the Pasadena rover team is organizing a marathon-length relay run the next week.
