Color View from Orbit Shows Mars Rover Beside Crater

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
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Guy Webster 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Feature: 2011-072 March 9, 2011

Color View from Orbit Shows Mars Rover Beside Crater

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-072&cid=release_2011-072

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has nearly completed its three-month examination
of a crater informally named "Santa Maria," but before the rover resumes its overland trek, an
orbiting camera has provided a color image of Opportunity beside Santa Maria.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired the image on March 1, while Opportunity was extending its
robotic arm to take close-up photos of a rock called "Ruiz Garcia." From orbit, the tracks
Opportunity made as it approached the crater from the west are clearly visible. Santa Maria
crater is about 90 meters (295 feet) in diameter.

The HiRISE image is at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA13803 . March 1
corresponded to the 2,524th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars. A raw image
from Opportunity's front hazard-avoidance camera from the same day, showing the arm
extended to Ruiz Garcia, is at
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/f/2524/1F352255948EFFB1F5P1110L0M1.HTML .
To complete the scale of imaging, a raw image taken by Opportunity's microscopic imager that
day, showing textural detail of the rock, is at
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/m/2524/1M352254519EFFB1F5P2935M2M1.HTML .

Opportunity completed its three-month prime mission on Mars in April 2004 and has been
working in bonus extended missions since then. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which
arrived at Mars on March 10, 2006, has also completed its prime mission and is operating in an
extended mission.

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the University of Arizona,
Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Exploration Rover projects
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, and built Opportunity and its twin rover,
Spirit. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is NASA's industry partner for the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter project and built that spacecraft.

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