NASA's Opportunity rover drove on a 32-degree Mars slope on March 10, the steepest ever tackled on the Red Planet. The rover, which has been exploring the planet since January 2004, is on a mission to get close enough to study a particular rock near the crest of the planet's Knudsen Ridge landform. This ridge is part of the Marathon Valley, a region that received its name for being the area marking the point where Opportunity passed the distance of a marathon - 26.2 miles - on its odometer.
Although driving on the 32-degree slope is an impressive feat, the Opportunity didn't quite reach the rock. The rover's handlers utilized a healthy number of wheel rotations in an attempt to compensate for the slippage on the slope, but unfortunately, this wasn't enough.
"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 the failed attempts, NASA's opportunity team has carried out a total of eight drives, including a reverse maneuver down the hill and back up again. After realizing that the slope was too difficult a task, the Mars rover backed down the hill and made its way 200 feet southwest towards another rock target in Marathon Valley.
Based on data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the new target, just like the last one, likely possesses clay minerals, which typically form in the presence of liquid water.
Since 2004, NASA's Opportunity rover, along with its twin Spirit, has been searching for evidence of liquid water that once flowed along the surface of Mars. Both of the rovers have found numerous signs since their touchdown on the Red Planet, and although Spirit died in 2011, Opportunity is still going strong.
The previous steep-slope record was also held by the Opportunity rover, stemming from its journey towards Mars' Burns Cliff, reaching a tilt of nearly 30 degrees.
