› Full image and caption NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera to take the exposures combined into this view of a wee crater, informally named "Skylab," along the rover's route.
June 02, 2011
A drive of 482 feet (146.8 meters) on June 1, 2011, took NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity past 30 kilometers (18.64 miles) in total odometry during 88 months of driving on Mars. That's 50 times the distance originally planned for the mission and more than 12 times the distance racehorses will run next week at the Belmont Stakes.
Opportunity has passed many craters on its crater-hopping tour. One of the youngest of them is "Skylab" crater, which the rover passed last month. Rocks scattered by the impact of a meteorite surround the resulting crater in a view recorded by Opportunity on May 12. The view is at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14132 , and in 3-D stereo at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14133 .
This crater, informally named after America's first space station, is only about 9 meters (30 feet) in diameter. Opportunity passed it as the rover made progress toward its long-term destination, Endeavour crater, which is about 22 kilometers (14 miles) in diameter.
The positions of the scattered rocks relative to sand ripples suggest that Skylab is young for a Martian crater. Researchers estimate it was excavated by an impact within the past 100,000 years.
Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004. Both rovers continued for years of bonus, extended missions. Both have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. Spirit has not communicated with Earth since March 2010.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about the rovers is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers .
Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
2011-170
Artist's conception of a Mars Exploration Rover on the Martian surface. 
The   has passed the 30-kilometer (18.64-mile) milestone in its travels over the Martian surface. ''Opportunity'' has been on Mars since 2004.

It was during a small recent drive of 146.8 meters (482 feet) that the rover passed the distance milestone. According to NASA, the distance traveled by ''Opportunity'' is 50 times that originally planned for the rover.

''Opportunity'' has passed several craters since landing on Mars in 2004, including one of the youngest craters yet investigated by the rover, named "Skylab" after the . The rover's ultimate destination is a large crater approximately  in diameter; ''Opportunity'' is now within about  of this crater.

''Opportunity'''s sister rover, , traveled about  across the Martian surface before it lost communication with Earth in March 2010; last month, NASA ceased attempts to regain contact with the rover.

Both the ''Opportunity'' and ''Spirit'' rovers have greatly surpassed their intended operational lifespan—which ended in April 2004—and have helped researchers make discoveries about the history of Mars, as well as the possibility that microbial life could have once been supported on the fourth planet from the sun.


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fr:Mars : le rover américain Opportunity franchit une nouvelle étape