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NASA’s Opportunity rover successfully rolled off its lander today and out onto the Martian surface – both rovers are now firmly on Martian soil. The commands to drive were given Saturday morning, and cheers erupted at JPL when the first images came back showing tracks in the dust back to the lander. “We’re two for two! One dozen wheels on the soil.” JPL’s Chris Lewicki, flight director, announced to the control room. The flight team ended up only requiring seven days to get Opportunity off the lander, compared to twelve days for Spirit.

NASA’s Spirit rover has gotten back to work sending pictures back to Earth, now that engineers have worked through most of the problems that plagued the rover over the last week. Spirit took a picture of its robotic arm, extended out towards a rock, to show that it was still in the same position when the glitches occurred. On the other side of the planet, Opportunity’s landing platform was tilted forward to prepare for the rover’s exit on Sunday or Monday.

NASA announced today that it has dedicated Opportunity’s landing site to the crew of the space shuttle Challenger, which were killed when the shuttle was destroyed shortly after takeoff on January 28, 1986 – 18 years ago today. Its new name will be The Challenger Memorial Station. This joins memorials for the Columbia and Apollo 1 crews which were also recently announced.

When selecting targets for Spirit and Opportunity, NASA engineers were very cautious about where the rovers could land. They needed to choose targets which had a low elevation, flat terrain, and free of large boulders that could destroy the spacecraft. Fortunately, both Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum have enough scientific value to make the trip worthwhile. Since the airbag technology has been so successful, future missions might get a little more dangerous, like landing on a volcano.

The most intriguing part about Opportunity’s landing spot is the big slab of bedrock exposed on the rim of the crater the rover is in. The region is important because it means that planetary geologists know where this rock was formed – right there. Other rocks can be moved by water and wind erosion, volcanic events or asteroid impacts, but this bedrock hasn’t been moved. When the rover is ready to drive off its lander, it will climb up to the bedrock and examine it carefully for any layers that could answer if there was once standing water in this region. And where there was once water, there could be life.

Opportunity has tested out the three scientific sensing tools on its robotic arm, and it appears they all survived the brutal entry and landing on Mars without a problem. The spacecraft took its first 24-image panoramic view of its surroundings which clearly shows the discoloured soil where the rover bounced inside an impact crater. Opportunity is still more than a week away from the point where it too will be rolled onto the Martian surface. On the other side of the planet, repairs on Spirit are ongoing, but it’s not clear when the rover will be able to continue its mission.

NASA’s Opportunity rover landed in an incredibly lucky spot on Sunday morning; inside a small impact crater, and very near a larger crater. The crater is only 20 metres across, but the first photos sent back by the rover show that there is exposed bedrock on one wall of the crater. Scientists have already got a preliminary journey for Opportunity planned, which involves examining the exposed rock and then traveling to the larger crater. Opportunity still needs to spend a week, maybe even two, on the lander before controllers feel comfortable rolling it out onto the Martian soil.

NASA engineers think they’ve got a way to communicate reliably with Spirit after it stopped responding normally last week. They believe the glitch – which caused the rover to reboot more than 100 times, transmit gibberish, and stay awake at night – was caused by a problem with its 256 MB flash memory (similar to what you might have in your digital camera). Until they can come up with a solution, they will wake the rover each morning in a way that stops it from using this troublesome component. For now, it’s stable and open to new commands.