Posted: Sat, May 18 10:02 AM ET (1402 GMT)
A nine-year-old Mars rover has broken the NASA record for the longest distance driven on the surface of another world. NASA announced this week that the Opportunity Mars rover has now driven 35.76 kilometers, breaking the previous record of 35.744 kilometers set by the Apollo 17 lunar rover in 1972. Opportunity broke the record as it set out on a multi-week trek from the Cape York section of the rim of Endeavour Crater, where the rover had been working since mid-2011, to a point 2.2 kilometers away called Solander Point. The rover, which has been on the Martian surface since January 2004, remains in good condition. The record for the longest distance driven by any vehicle on another world belongs to the Soviet robotic rover Lunokhod 2, which drove 37 kilometers on the Moon in 1973.

Related Links:

•  Discovery.com article
•  Houston Chronicle article
•  Los Angeles Times article
•  CNET News.com article
•  NASA/JPL press release

Posted: Wed, May 1 5:10 AM ET (0910 GMT)
Communications with the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity resumed this week with the discovery that the veteran spacecraft was in "a type of standby mode," JPL reported. Communications resume on April 27 after a month-long hiatus due to solar conjunction, and controllers found Opportunity in a state called automode. Engineers believe the rover detected a problem of some kind during atmospheric observations on April 22. Controllers planned to send commands to the rover this week to take it out of that standby mode and resume normal operations. Opportunity has been on Mars for over nine years, and remains in good condition. Operations of the Curiosity rover, which landed last August, are also expected to resume this week.

Related Links:

•  SPACE.com article
•  Discovery.com article
•  Pasadena Star-News article
•  NASA/JPL press release

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