Second rover lands safely on Mars

(L-R) Nasa Administrator Sean O'Keefe, Associate Administrator for Space Science, Dr Edward Weiler and JPL Director, Dr. Charles Elachi and Dr. Steve Squyres, Principle Investigator view the first images taken by the Nasa Mars Rover "Opportunity" after its successful landing on the Red Planet. PHOTO: AFP

Nasa's Opportunity rover landed on Mars late Saturday, arriving at the Red Planet exactly three weeks after its identical twin set down, and prompting whoops and cheers of delight from mission scientists.

"We're on Mars everybody," Rob Manning, manager of the entry, descent and landing portion of the mission, shouted as fellow scientists at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory burst into wild applause.

The unmanned, six-wheeled rover landed at 9:05 p.m. PST in Meridiani Planum, Nasa said. The smooth, flat plain lies 6,600 miles and halfway around the planet from where its twin, Spirit, set down on January 3.

Minutes after the landing, former Vice President Al Gore and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger strode through mission control, shaking hands with elated scientists.

Together, the twin rovers make up a single $820 million mission to determine if Mars ever was a wetter world capable of sustaining life. Nasa launched Spirit on June 10. Opportunity followed on July 7.

Earlier this week, Spirit developed serious problems, cutting off what had been a steady flow of pictures and other scientific data. Scientists said earlier Saturday, however, that they believe they can fix the problem in the weeks ahead.

At a jubliant news conference nearly two hours after the landing, Nasa Administrator Sean O'Keefe broke open a bottle of champagne, as he did after Spirit's landing, and toasted the mission's leaders.

"As the old saying goes, it's far better to be lucky than good, but you know, the harder we work the luckier we seem to get," O'Keefe said, adding "no one dared hope" that both rover landings would be so successful.