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Mars Exploration Rover
Opportunity Celebrates 10
Years Working on Mars
By: Nicole Willett, Education Director,
The Mars Society
With all of the hype surrounding the Mars
Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity, it is easy
for the public to forget the Mars Exploration
Rovers (MER) Spirit and Opportunity. The
twin rovers were each launched by a Delta
II Heavy Lifter rocket in the summer of
2003. The Opportunity Rover landed using
the airbag method in Meridiani Planum
their own challenges. Sadly for the MER team, although Spirit
on January 25, 2004 three weeks after the
also far exceeded its mission, the last contact with Spirit was
Spirit Rover landed. This very industrious
in 2010. In honor of Opportunity and her twin, Spirit, a new
rover was planned for only a 90 day surface
museum exhibit has opened at the Smithsonian Institution.
mission and has now gone 39 times past its
Huge wall size panoramas of Mars give visitors a sense that they
planned mission. On January 25, 2014 the
are on the surface of the planet. The exhibit also has a full scale
Opportunity rover completed 10 full Earth
model of the rover as its centerpiece. The name of the exhibit
years on Mars. The two rovers have made
is “Spirit and Opportunity: 10 Years Roving Across Mars” The
many wonderful discoveries and they paved
museum officials stated that the purpose of the exhibit is to
the way for Curiosity. Each rover has a dis-
combine art and science in a multimedia experience that visi-
tinct personality and each have encountered
tors will be immersed in. (Space.com)
ICY SCIENCE | QTR 1 2014