Opportunity: Landing

Road trip! This compilation of images from hazard-avoidance cameras on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity between January 2004 and April 2015 shows the rover's-eye-view of the Martian marath...

This map updates progress that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is making toward reaching a driving distance equivalent to a marathon footrace. It indicates the rover's position on March 2...

Spirit acquired this false-color image after using the rock abrasion tool to brush the surfaces of rock targets informally named "Stars" (left) and "Crawfords" (right). Small streaks of dust extend...

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recorded this view of a crater informally named "Freedom 7" shortly before the 50th anniversary of the first American in space: astronaut Alan Shepard's fl...

In this selfie, Spirit shows her solar panels gleaming in the Martian sunlight and carrying only a thin veneer of dust two years after the rover landed and began exploring the red planet.

Eleven years and two months after its landing on Mars, the total driving distance of NASA's Opportunity Mars rover surpassed the length of a marathon race: 26.219 miles (42.195 kilometers). This ma...

This false-color view was taken by the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity on the 3,230th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission (Feb. 23, 2013). The rock ta...

Spirit acquired this mosaic while investigating the area east of the elevated plateau known as "Home Plate" in the "Columbia Hills." The trench exposed a patch of nearly pure silica, with the comp...

This color image taken by the panoramic camera onboard the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the part of the rock outcrop dubbed Stone Mountain at Meridiani Planum, Mars.

This image shows NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity perched on the edge of "Concepción" crater in Meridiani Planum, Mars.

Navigators must safely maneuver Spirit and Opportunity to their precise atmospheric entry points to reach their landing targets on the surface of Mars. In only six minutes, the spacecraft must slow...

This scene from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows "Lunokhod 2 Crater," which lies south of "Solander Point" on the west rim of Endeavour Crater.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, working on Mars since January 2004, passed 25 miles of total driving on the July 27, 2014. The gold line on this map shows Opportunity's route from the la...

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took this image of the region near "Husband Hill."

The cruise stage provides power, communication and propulsion for the rover and lander within its cocoon made up of the heatshield and backshell for the cruise to Mars.

Women working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory pose for a photo in mission control in honor of Women in Science Day.

This view captured by Spirit called "Legacy" panorama, combines images taken between the landing site and the rim of "Bonnevile Crater."

These two thumbnail images, with the ghostly dot of a faint Sun near the middle of each, are the last images NASA's Opportunity rover took on Mars.

This image hows several dust devils moving from right to left across a plain inside Mars' Gusev Crater, as seen from the vantage point of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in hills rising from t...

This late-afternoon view from the front Hazard Avoidance Camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows a pattern of rock stripes on the ground, a surprise to scientists on the rover tea...

Two spacecraft engineers join a grouping of vehicles providing a comparison of three generations of Mars rovers developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The setting is JPL's ...

This stereo view from the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows a vista across Endeavour Crater, with the rover's own shadow in the foreground. The view spans 216 com...

Near the lower left corner of this view is the three-petal lander platform that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit drove off in January 2004.

John Callas, project manager for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers mission, makes the call ending the last formal session via NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) for the Opportunity rover at Mars on Feb. ...

During a team meeting for NASA’s Opportunity rover, Ben Cark of the Space Science Institute talks about his experiences working on NASA’s longest-lived Mars surface explorer.