April 3, 2015: Opportunity Finishes First Marathon on Another Planet and Roves On It began as a day like thousands of others for the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission, but it ended in a way no other sol or Martian day ever will again.
On March 24, 2015, after spending several weeks investigating some new rock types along the western rim of Endeavour Crater, Opportunity roved past 42.2 kilometers (26.2 miles) and put the first off-Earth marathon in her rear view mirror, driving the Mars Exploration Rovers mission back into the space history books.
“This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance of a marathon on the surface of another world,” said John Callas, MER project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), home to all of NASA’s Mars rovers. “A first time happens only once.” [More at link]