This fx image of Opportunity on Burns Cliff inside Endurance Crater was produced using “Virtual Presence in Space” technology developed at JPL. This technology combines visualization and image processing with Hollywood-style special effects. This images was created with a photorealistic model of the rover on a near true color mosaic. The size of the rover was based on the size of the rover tracks in the mosaic and is essentially to scale.
"Spirit explored just as we would have, seeing a distant hill, climbing it, and showing us the vista from the summit,” said Squyres. “And she did it in a way that allowed everyone on Earth to be part of the adventure."
At Meridiani, Opportunity was roving carefree across the plains toward Erebus Crater until she hit a sand ripple in late April 2005. Stuck up to her ‘hubcaps,’ for six weeks, it would be a lesson hard learned. By June, the robot that was garnering acclaim as ‘the rover that loves to rove’ managed to free herself and get back to where she once belonged, roving across the plains.
Back on the road south toward Victoria, Opportunity stopped at Erebus Crater and spent about five months between, October 2005 and March 2006, studying the large, shallow, partially buried hole in the ground. During this time, she broke her shoulder joint and had to adapt to driving with her IDD or robotic arm partially deployed, looking like she was sporting a fishing pole. No big deal. It wasn’t anything that could stop this rover.
