The Mars Rover Opportunity replica, created by Cornell University students and shown at the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum (VITM), was opened on Thursday by M Sankaran, Director of the UR Rao Satellite Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation.
The model was first displayed at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Dulles, Virginia, in the United States, and was subsequently displayed at the US Pavillion during the 2020 World Expo in Dubai.
After being delivered, the replica was displayed in the American Centre in the US Consulate in Chennai from November 2022 to March 2023 before being delivered to the VITM.
"As the United States and India forge even closer cooperation across critical sectors, space provides yet another example of our partnership, with today's dedication ceremony serving as a symbol of our shared commitment," said Marisa Lago, US Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade.
The full-scale duplicate of the Mars Rover Opportunity has arrived in India, symbolising the long-standing space technology collaboration between India and the United States, according to Judith Ravin, the US Consul General in Chennai.
The United States and India are key allies in space exploration. She emphasised that the United States and India Civil Space Joint Working Group, which was established in 2005, provides the setting for a fruitful exchange of ideas and discussion on new and enlarged areas for civil space cooperation.
Ravin asserts that the four working groups that make up the civil space dialogue between the United States and India are Earth sciences, space research and exploration, heliophysics, and human space flight.
According to her, "the collaboration between our two nations demonstrates that the technologies created to support space exploration have real-world applications that affect all of us, from improvements in telecommunications and satellite navigation to agricultural monitoring and weather forecasting."
From 2004 until 2018, the Mars Rover Opportunity was in use on the planet. Its control station received hundreds of images from it.
