NASA's Opportunity Rover Tries To Conquer Mars' Steepest Slope

On March 10, NASA's Opportunity rover rode on a 32-degree Mars slope, which would count among its steepest drive in the Red Planet. As it has been probing the planet since January 2004, the rover is on a goal to get close enough to study a rock near the crest of its Knudsen Ridge landform.

This ridge is in the Marathon Valley that got its name for its location in the area where Opportunity passed 26.2 miles on its odometer.

However, the Opportunity didn't touch the rock site. It tried to use wheel rotations so that it can make up for slippage on the slope, but it could not manage.

"The wheels did turn enough to have carried the rover about 66 feet (20 meters) if there had been no slippage, but slippage was so great, the vehicle progressed only about 3.5 inches (9 centimeters)," NASA officials said."This was the third attempt to reach the target and came up a few inches short. The rover team reached a tough decision to skip that target and move on."

Since then, NASA's opportunity team managed eight drives, and a reverse maneuver down and then up the hill. Realizing the difficulty of the task, the rover went back and then rode 200 feet southwest another rock target in Marathon Valley.

The new target  like the earlier one has clay minerals in the presence of water, conclude the experts, based on data gathered from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA's Opportunity rover, with its twin Spirit, has been seeking water on the surface of Mars. With both rovers finding a number of signs since the landing on the Red Planet, it has been discovered that though Spirit died in 2011, Opportunity is still strong.

The earlier steep-slope record was held by the Opportunity rover, beginning from its journey towards Mars' Burns Cliff. It reached a tilt of nearly 30 degrees.