![]() It’s the rover that has both operated the longest and driven the furthest. Opportunity, also known as MER-B and “Oppy,” landed in January, 2004 and operated until June, 2018. A heat shield after impact (Opportunity, 2004).Though its mission was only designed to last a week, Sojourner operated for 83 earth days and collected more than 17,000 images and 15 chemical analyses. Landing on July 4, 1997, Sojourner accompanied the Pathfinder lander to Mars and became the first wheeled vehicle to rove another planet. (The first operational spacecraft to land on Mars was the Soviet Union’s Mars 3 but it stopped transmitting after 14.5 seconds.) Viking 1 was a stationary lander, and operated for 2,307 earth days taking photos that helped us better understand the planet’s surface and atmosphere. Jmarks the first time an operational spacecraft landed on Mars and completed its mission. ![]() The first photo from the surface of Mars (Viking 1, 1976).It took 22 photos of the red planet, each of which took 10 hours to relay back to Earth. Mariner 4 became the first successful Mars flyby in 1964. NASA’s 10-part Mariner program (1962-1973) aimed to look at the surfaces of Mars, Venus, and Mercury. NASA technology has come a long way since we first landed on the planet in 1976-as we look forward to what Perseverance might accomplish, let’s look back on what we’ve already achieved on Mars. With 23 cameras and seven scientific instruments, Perseverance will conduct science on Mars with unprecedented complexity.
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