NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity: Mission Goals and Findings
This paper examines NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission, with a focus on the MER-B rover, Opportunity. Launched in 2003 and landing on Mars in January 2004, Opportunity and its twin Spirit were tasked with investigating the geological history of water on Mars. The paper outlines the mission's seven primary scientific objectives, describes the specialized instruments carried by each rover, and summarizes Opportunity's operational achievements — including an odometry record far exceeding original expectations. It also discusses early findings related to liquid water on Mars and considers the broader significance of the MER mission for future planetary exploration.
- Introduction to the Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Mission overview, launch dates, and rover status
- Seven Scientific Objectives of the MER Mission: All seven official MER scientific goals described
- Rover Instruments and Capabilities: Onboard instruments and their scientific functions
- Rover Design and Geological Investigation: How rover design mimics geologist field work
- Opportunity's Ongoing Mission Activity: Latest operational update and current rover activities
- Discoveries, Legacy, and Future Exploration: Water evidence, mission legacy, and Curiosity rover
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper systematically enumerates all seven mission objectives using direct quotations from primary NASA sources, giving the reader a precise understanding of what the mission was designed to accomplish.
- Concrete details — such as Opportunity's odometry reading of 21.25 miles and the 1.5-meter mast height — ground abstract mission descriptions in specific, verifiable data.
- The conclusion effectively connects the individual mission to broader implications, linking the MER findings to future missions such as the Curiosity rover.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective integration of source material through a blend of direct quotation and paraphrase. Rather than relying entirely on block quotes, the writer weaves agency documentation into analytical sentences, maintaining a consistent informational voice while crediting sources with in-text citations throughout.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with mission context and a brief operational status update, then moves into a detailed enumeration of the seven scientific objectives. A subsequent section describes the technical instrumentation aboard each rover, followed by a discussion of rover design philosophy. The paper then reports on Opportunity's latest mission activity before concluding with discoveries about Martian water, mission legacy, and future exploration directions. This funnel structure moves from context to detail to significance.
Introduction to the Mars Exploration Rover Mission
On June 10 and July 3, 2003, NASA launched the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) to Mars in order to search for answers regarding the history of water on the planet. The two rovers launched were designated MER-A and MER-B — Spirit and Opportunity, respectively — and landed on Mars on January 3 and January 24, 2004. This Mars Exploration Rover mission was designed to provide long-term information to Earth through robotic exploration of Mars. Chief among the mission's scientific goals "is to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars" (Summary, n.d.). As of 2010, MER-B, or Opportunity, was the only active rover on Mars, as MER-A, or Spirit, ceased communications in 2010 after becoming immobile in 2009.
Opportunity continued to transmit images to NASA well beyond its original operational window. The projected landing sites for the Mars Exploration Rovers were Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum (Summary, n.d.). Both MER-A and MER-B were equipped with airbags that allowed them to begin taking photographs as soon as they landed on the red planet. The images these rovers captured have allowed scientists to study and better understand the history of water on Mars, and have helped scientists determine which geographical sites warrant further exploration.
Opportunity is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on behalf of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project, which is overseen by the Office of Space Science in Washington, D.C. (Krebs, 2011).
References
Chang, K. (2 September 2011). Mars Rover Discovery Elates NASA. The New York Times. Print.
Krebs, G.D. (11 October 2011). Mars Exploration Rover A, B (MER A, B / Spirit / Opportunity). Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 9 November 2011 from http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/mars_exploration_rover.htm
Objectives. (n.d.). Mars Exploration Rovers. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 9 November 2011 from
Summary. (n.d.). Mars Exploration Rovers. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 9 November 2011 from
Update: Spirit and Opportunity. (n.d.). Mars Exploration Rovers. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 9 November 2011 from
Where Are The Rovers Now? (n.d.). Mars Exploration Rovers. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 9 November 2011.
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