NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission hits a new dimension with latest news that rover “Opportunity” is heading 12 km towards southeast to explore 22km wide Endeavour crater which is 20 times larger than 800m-wide Victoria crater it explored last.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which designed, built and is operating the 2 rovers- Spirit and Opportunity sent to Mars. The mission is primarily concentrating on study of rocks and soil on Martian land to find out whether Martian environment was ever favorable to life.
Mars Exploration Rovers-Spirit and Opportunity, started their journey towards Mars on 10th June and 7th July, 2003, and landed on Mars in Gusev crater, a possible former lake, and in the Meridiani Planum, area abundant in mineral deposits, on 3rd Jan and 24th Jan, 2004, PST.
Rover Spirit explored the peak of Husband Hill, thereafter traveled to study the crescent rock Home Plate, and then moved to McCool Hill. Rover Opportunity, earlier in this mission, explored Endurance crater and then moved to Victoria crater on 11th Sept, 2007. With the aid of sophisticated set of scientific instruments, both rovers have gathered evidence that parts of Mars were once soaked by water and ancient Martian environments were habitable.
Opportunity succeeded to climb out of Victoria Crater on 29 Aug, 2008 and set on its new target - to travel to Endeavour carter which is about 12km away. As per statistics, even if the rover travels 100 meters a day it would take about 2 years to complete the journey.
Opportunity and Spirit have long crossed their expected lifetime bar which is making scientists conjecture that rover Opportunity might not be able to complete its journey to crater. This distance is almost the same distance that the rover has covered till now from its 2004 landing on Mars.
The new venture is tremendously compelling to make an attempt and travel towards south direction which is expected to show younger layers of rocks for study. "We may not get there, but it is scientifically the right direction to go anyway" said Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit. This venture is expected to bring to surface some astounding facts revealed in this whole mission up till now.
The good news is that this journey is scientifically more equipped than before because of the two new resources that are set to aid this new trek which were not available during the previous 4-mile drive toward Victoria Crater in 2005 and 2006.
One of them is the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera which arrived at the Martian land in 2006. It helps to identify the drive paths and potential hazards on route and is placed on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Second important aid is the availability of a newer and better version of flight software which was unlinked to Opportunity and Spirit in 2006. This software aids the rover in driving by letting it autonomously decide the routes to travel through and avoid hitting dangers on its way like sand dunes.
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