Opportunity: Landing

This collage shows the variety of soils found at landing sites on Mars.

This enhanced-color view from within "Perseverance Valley," on the inner slope of the western rim of Mars' Endurance Crater, includes wheel tracks from the Opportunity rover's descent of the valley...

What looks like the rover "neck and head" is called the Pancam Mast Assembly.

This image from the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's rear hazard identification camera shows the rover's hind view of the lander platform, its nest for the past 12 sols, or martian days. The rover i...

Wheel tracks from NASA's Mars rover Opportunity descending and departing the "Cape Tribulation" segment of Endeavour Crater's rim are visible in this April 21, 2017, view from the rover's Pancam. T...

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

A crowd of excited men and women who work on the Mars Exploration Rover mission are wearing white paper 3-D glasses with red and blue lenses to view some of the Spirit rover's first three-dimension...

This June 2017 stereo view from NASA's Opportunity Mars rover shows the area just above "Perseverance Valley" on the rim of a crater. It combines images from the left eye and right eye of the ro...

This oblique view with moderate vertical exaggeration shows the portion of the rim of Endeavour crater given the informal name "Spirit Point." This is the location where the team operating NASA's ...

This image is a cropped version of the last 360-degree panorama taken by the Opportunity rover's Panoramic Camera (Pancam) from May 13 through June 10, 2018. The view is presented in false color to...

This bird's-eye view combines a self-portrait of the spacecraft deck and a panoramic mosaic of the Martian surface as viewed by the Spirit rover.

Cindy Oda stood up to share her experience working with NASA’s Opportunity rover during a team meeting in Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

This is the Spirit panoramic camera's "Lookout" panorama, acquired on the rover's 410th to 413th martian days, or sols (Feb. 27 to Mar. 2, 2005).

As Opportunity continued to traverse from "Erebus Crater" toward "Victoria Crater," the rover navigated along exposures of bedrock between large, wind-blown ripples.

NASA's Opportunity Mars rover passed near this small, relatively fresh crater in April 2017, during the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 16 mission to the moon. The rover team chose to call it "Orion...

This Sept. 21, 2016, scene from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows "Spirit Mound" overlooking the floor of Endeavour Crater. The mound stands near the ...

Locations of landers and rovers on Mars.

Wheel tracks from NASA's Mars rover Opportunity descending and departing the "Cape Tribulation" segment of Endeavour Crater's rim are visible in this April 21, 2017, view from the rover's Panoramic...

During the three-year trek of NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity from Victoria crater to Endeavour crater, rover planners captured a horizon photograph at the end of each drive. 309 images taken during ...

This image shows rocky debris and dust, which planetary scientists call "regolith" or "soil," that has been churned up by the rover wheels.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity captured this southward uphill view after beginning to ascend the northwestern slope of "Solander Point" on the western rim of Endeavour Crater.

Chile's Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth -- and a ready analog for Mars' rugged, arid terrain.

Results from Opportunity and Curiosity show Mars could have supported life.

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...

"Perseverance Valley" lies just on the other side of the dip in the crater rim visible in this view from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's long-lived Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, whic...