Opportunity: Landing

Protected by large airbags, the lander falls away from the parachute, landing safely on Mars.

A lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse and Mars has a close encounter with a comet.

This scene from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows "Lunokhod 2 Crater," which lies south of "Solander Point" on the west rim of Endeavour Crater.

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...

A self-portrait of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity taken by the rover's panoramic camera (Pancam) in late March 2014 shows effects of recent winds removing much of the dust from the rover...

Download a PDF of the Spirit Poster.

Mars Exploration Rover parachute deployment testing

This grouping of two test rovers and a flight spare provides a graphic comparison of three generations of Mars rovers developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The setting is ...

The boulder-studded ridge in this scene recorded by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is "McClure-Beverlin Escarpment," informally named for Jack Beverlin and Bill McClure, engineers who on...

From its perch high on a ridge, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recorded this image of a Martian dust devil twisting through the valley below.

This full-circle panorama shows the terrain around the NASA Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during the 3,071st Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (Sept. 13, 2012).

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has been working on Mars since landing inside Eagle Crater on Jan. 25, 2004 (Universal Time; evening of Jan. 24, Pacific Standard Time).

This May 29, 2016, image of a target called "Private Joseph Field" combines images from the microscopic imager on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity with enhanced color information from the ...

NASA'S Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this westward view from atop a low plateau where Sprit spent the closing months of 2007.

These views of Mars are just a small sampling from the 124,000 images returned by the Spirit rover. (Audio: music only)

This blink comparison aids evaluation of a drive by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit during the rover's 2,099th Martian day, or sol (Nov. 28, 2009).

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...

This image shows the location of the rover-containing section of new color image in relation to Solander Point.

As NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity creeps farther into "Endurance Crater," the dune field on the crater floor appears even more dramatic

This image shows the rock dubbed "Humphrey" and the circular areas on the rock that were wiped off by the rover.

After two failed missions to Mars, NASA tried to double its odds for success by sending twin rovers to the Red Planet. Part one of the story of Spirit and Opportunity takes us from their birth to t...

NASA's InSight arrives at Vandenberg AFB and readies for launch, Opportunity uses its abrasion tool for the first time in 300 sols, and Curiosity celebrates 2,000 Martian days on the Red Planet.

On January 24, 2017, Opportunity celebrates her 13 years on Mars. On Earth, she's officially a teenager and she's been behaving like one.

The boulder-studded ridge in this scene recorded by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is "McClure-Beverlin Escarpment," informally named for Jack Beverlin and Bill McClure, engineers who on...

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera to record this view at the end of a 111-meter (364-foot) drive on the 2,353rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mar...