Curiosity (rover) ground then fired several pyrotechnic fasteners activating cable cutters on the bridle to free itself from the spacecraft descent stage. The descent stage then flew away to a crash landing, and the rover prepared itself to begin the science portion of the mission. Live video showing the first footage from the surface of Mars was available at NASA TV, during the late hours of August 6, 2012 PDT, including interviews with the mission team. The NASA website momentarily became unavailable from the overwhelming number of people visiting it, and a 13-minute NASA excerpt of the landings on its YouTube channel
Mars Exploration Rover Reddit that appeared to depict a human penis carved into the Martian dirt. On May 16, 2013, NASA announced that "Opportunity" had driven further than any other NASA vehicle on a world other than Earth. After "Opportunity's" total odometry went over , the rover surpassed the total distance driven by the Apollo 17 Lunar Roving Vehicle. On July 28, 2014, NASA announced that "Opportunity" had driven further than any other vehicle on a world other than Earth. "Opportunity" covered over , surpassing the total distance of driven by the Lunokhod 2 lunar rover, the previous record-holder. On March 23, 2015,