Public Events Mark Mars Rovers' Five-Year Anniversary
Public events during the next two weeks will share 
the adventures of the still-active NASA Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
PASADENA, Calif. -- Public events during the next two weeks will share 
the adventures of the still-active NASA Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, 
which landed five years ago this month on missions originally scheduled 
to last three months.Rover mission leaders will present free, illustrated talks Thursday, 
Jan. 15, and Friday, Jan. 16, in Pasadena, with the Jan. 15 event 
streamed live online and archived for later viewing.On Friday, Jan. 23, through Sunday, Jan. 25, rover team members will give 
a series of talks at Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. The observatory 
will also display a full-size Mars rover model, with team members available 
to answer visitors' questions.Since landing on opposite sides of Mars during January of 2004, Spirit and 
Opportunity have made important discoveries about historically wet and 
violent environments on ancient Mars. They also have returned a quarter-million 
images, driven more than 21 kilometers (13 miles), climbed a mountain, 
descended into craters, struggled with sand traps and aging hardware, 
survived dust storms, and relayed more than 36 gigabytes of data via NASA's 
Mars Odyssey orbiter. Both rovers remain operational for new exploration 
campaigns the team has planned.The public presentations on Jan. 15 and 16, "Spirit and Opportunity: The Corps 
of Discovery for Mars Rolls On," are part of the monthly von Kármán Lecture Series 
by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Steve Squyres of Cornell 
University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science payloads on 
the rovers, will deliver the Jan. 15 talk in Beckman Auditorium on the campus 
of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, on Michigan Avenue one block 
south of Del Mar Avenue. JPL's John Callas, project manager for the rovers, will 
deliver the Jan. 16 talk in Pasadena City College's Vosloh Forum, 1570 E. Colorado Ave.Squyres and Callas will begin their presentations at 7 p.m. Admission is free, 
on a first-come, first-seated basis. For more information about the lectures and the 
webcast of the Jan. 15 event, seehttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures.cfm?year=2009&month=1.At Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, the full-size rover model will be on display 
in the Depths of Space gallery Jan. 23 through Jan. 25, accompanied by rover team members 
from JPL. Talks about topics such as how the team drives the rovers and what the rovers 
have revealed about Mars will be presented in the observatory's Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon 
Theater. These talks, by JPL rover-team members Al Herrera, Scott Lever, Scott Maxwell, John 
Callas, Bruce Banerdt and Ashley Stroupe, are scheduled for the following times: 7 p.m. on 
Jan. 23; 1:30 p.m., 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Jan. 24; and 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Jan. 25.For more information about visiting Griffith Observatory, seehttp://www.griffithobs.org/.JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the Mars Exploration Rovers for the NASA Science Mission 
Directorate, Washington. More information about the rovers is athttp://www.nasa.gov/rovers.