Previous Record Held By Lunar Rover Driven By Gene Cernan And Harrison Schmitt

While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited Earth's moon for three days in December 1972, they drove their mission's Lunar Roving Vehicle 19.3 nautical miles. That was the farthest total distance for any NASA vehicle driving on a world other than Earth ... until Thursday.

The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity received confirmation in a transmission from Mars Thursday that the rover drove 263 feet, bringing Opportunity's total odometry since landing on Mars in January 2004 to 22.220 statute miles.
 
Cernan discussed this prospect a few days ago with Opportunity team member Jim Rice of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. The Apollo 17 astronaut said, "The record we established with a roving vehicle was made to be broken, and I'm excited and proud to be able to pass the torch to Opportunity."
 
The international record for driving distance on another world is still held by the Soviet Union's remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover, which traveled 23 miles on the surface of Earth's moon in 1973.
 
Opportunity began a multi-week trek this week from an area where it has been working since mid-2011, the "Cape York" segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater, to an area about 1.4 miles away, "Solander Point."

(NASA image taken by Opportunity's front hazard-avoidance camera after the Sol 3309 drive, looking back at the tracks produced while the rover was driving in reverse, as it often does. For scale, the distance between the parallel tracks is about 3.3 feet.)

FMI: www.nasa.gov