Mars Rover Opportunity Headed Toward its First New Site in Nearly Two Years

As it approaches 10 years since its launch, NASA’s Opportunity rover is on the move again, trekking to a new study area still many weeks away.

The destination, known as Solander Point, promises a stretch of land with much more geological layering than Cape York where the rover spent the past 20 months.

"Getting to Solander Point will be like walking up to a road cut where you see a cross section of the rock layers," Ray Arvidson of Washington University, St. Louis, deputy principal investigator for the mission, said in a press release.

Moreover, Solander Point offers ground tilted toward the north, which can only help the solar-powered rover stay active and mobile through the coming Martian southern-hemisphere winter.

"We're heading to a 15-degree north-facing slope with a goal of getting there well before winter," said John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., project manager for the Mars Exploration Rover Project.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project launched Opportunity and its twin vehicle Spirit in June 2003. Both reached the Martian surface in January 2004 and quickly proceeded to complete their three-month prime missions that were then followed by years of “bonus,” extended missions.

In doing so, both uncovered evidence of wet environments on ancient Mars.

And while Spirit ceased operations in 2010, Opportunity continues its steady work, though it has begun to show symptoms of aging, including loss of motion in some joints.

Despite this, NASA reports the rover continues to accomplish groundbreaking exploration and science.

For example, shortly before leaving Cape York last month, Opportunity used the rock abrasion tool, the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and the microscopic imager on its robotic arm to examine a rock called "Esperance," in which it identified a combination of elements pointing to clay-mineral composition.

"The Esperance results are some of the most important findings of our entire mission," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the mission. "The composition tells us about the environmental conditions that altered the minerals. A lot of water moved through this rock."

However, while Cape York exposes a few yards of vertical cross-section through geological layering, Solander Point exposes roughly 10 times as much, fueling researchers’ hope of finding evidence regarding different stages in the history of ancient Martian environments.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.