[meteorite-list] NASA Mars Rover Approaches Endeavour Crater

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 09:28:28 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201108091628.p79GSSOM023884_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-246

NASA Mars Rover Approaches Long-Term Goal
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 08, 2011

The NASA Mars rover Opportunity has gained a view of Endeavour crater
from barely more than a football-field's distance away from the rim. The
rim of Endeavour has been the mission's long-term goal since mid-2008.

Endeavour offers the setting for plenty of productive work by
Opportunity. The crater is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter -- more
than 25 times wider than Victoria crater, an earlier stop that
Opportunity examined for two years. Observations by orbiting spacecraft
indicate that the ridges along Endeavour's western rim expose rock
outcrops older than any Opportunity has seen so far. The selected
location for arrival at the rim, "Spirit Point," is at the southern tip
of one of those ridges, "Cape York," on the western side of Endeavour.

Opportunity and 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.
The mission of the Spirit rover, for which Spirit Point was named, was
concluded in May, 2011, after the rover did not re-establish
communications following the Martian winter.

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 at jpl.nasa.gov

2011-246
Received on Tue 09 Aug 2011 12:28:28 PM PDT