Opportunity: Landing

This self-portrait from Opportunity shows dust accumulation on the rover's solar panels as the mission approached its fifth Martian winter.

Artist's concept of controlling the rover from Earth, scientists drive the rover along Mars' surface inspecting geological features.

This view from NASA's Opportunity Mars rover shows part of "Marathon Valley," a destination on the western rim of Endeavour Crater, as seen from an overlook north of the valley. It was taken by the...

Bill Allen in JPL's Mars Yard in early 2020.

This 360-degree stereo anaglyph of the terrain surrounding NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit on the 147th martian day of the rover's mission inside Gusev Crater, on June 1, 2004, was assembled f...

An artist's concept portrays a NASA Mars Exploration Rover on the surface of Mars. Two rovers have been built for 2003 launches and January 2004 arrival at two sites on Mars. Each rover has the mob...

The component images for this 360-degree panorama were taken by the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity after the rover drove about 97 feet (29.5 meters) during the missi...

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.

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

As Opportunity crept farther into "Endurance Crater," the dune field on the crater floor appeared even more dramatic.

This is the 3-D anaglyph showing a microscopic image taken of soil featuring round, blueberry-shaped rock formations on the crater floor at Meridiani Planum, Mars. This image was taken on the 13th ...

The left image shows an extreme close-up of round, blueberry-shaped formations in the martian soil near a part of the rock outcrop at Meridiani Planum called Stone Mountain.

This graphic compares atmospheric opacity in different Mars years from the point of view of NASA’s Opportunity rover. 

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 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...

This synthetic image of NASA's Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover inside Endurance Crater was produced using "Virtual Presence in Space" technology.

This 3-D image combines computer-generated models of the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit and its lander with real surface data from the rover's panoramic camera. It shows Spirit's position just after...

The "Block Island" meteorite, reproduced at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The "Columbia Hills" flank Spirit's path in this view.

A shadow and tracks of NASA's Mars rover Opportunity appear in this March 22, 2016, image, which has been rotated 13.5 degrees to adjust for the tilt of the rover. The hillside descends to the left...

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...

Opportunity used its panoramic camera to take the images combined into this mosaic view of the rover.

These images of a sand "ripple" were acquired by Opportunity using its panoramic camera on sol 644 and its navigation camera on sol 645.

See how Mars Exploration Rover team members take on the demands of driving a rover millions of miles away from Earth.

This 360-degree view from a site dubbed "Engineering Flats" shows the rover's shadow.