Opportunity entered the Victoria Crater

An updated report on the first mission awaiting the Mars rovers after the dust storm that covered the entire planet for many weeks subsided

By Fraser Kane, Universe Today

Now that the massive dust storm on Mars has quieted down and dissipated, the robotic all-terrain vehicles can continue their research. When they were caught in the storm that forced their factories to freeze in place, the robotic vehicle Opportunity climbed down into Victoria Crater, to search for evidence of the past existence of water in this region of Mars.

On Monday, NASA personnel announced that the vehicle had already entered the crater in reverse gear and will now begin a several-week study at the bottom of the crater.

Opportunity's first target within the Victoria crater is a bright layer of weathered rock that may have preserved evidence of interaction between the Martian atmosphere and its surface from millions of years ago. The body that struck and created Victoria Crater revealed more ancient layers than any seen by Opportunity during its 44 months of operation on Mars.

The diameter of the Victoria crater is about 800 meters, and it is the largest impact crater that one of the vehicles has attempted to drive into. Because the crater is cut into the Martian soil, it provides scientists with a rare opportunity to dig back in time, when the rock layers were exposed - ideal for finding signs of water activity.

This is the second attempt to put the vehicle into the crater. Earlier this week, members of the Mars Robotics operating team ordered Opportunity to travel far enough so that all six of its wheels were inside the crater. The vehicle was asked to exit again so that the crew could assess the vehicle's ability to enter and exit again. In the end the vehicle skidded a bit more than the operators intended, so they ordered it to stop with its front wheels still on the slope. During these days they collected data about the drag force at this angle. and analyzed the data to understand if entering or exiting the crater would damage the robot.