On June 25, Dr. Rongxing (Ron) Li, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering & Geodetic Science, along with his research team, were official guests at the launch of the Mars Exploration Rover "Opportunity" mission in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. This mission launch was aborted with seconds to go, but the rover was finally launched July 7, 2003, racing after its twin robot "Spirit". The two spacecraft are expected to reach Mars in January. While in Florida, Dr. Li attended sessions of the NASA Science Team as an official Participating Scientist of the NASA Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission. The purpose of the MER rovers is to examine their landing areas for geological evidence that water exists on Mars.

PI Dr. Li and his team (CEEGS PhD students Fengliang Xu and Jue Wang, and Co-I Dr. Kaichang Di) are working on a project called "Surface Image-based High-precision Near Real-time Landing Site Mapping and Long-range Rover Localization for the MER 2003 Mission". They have developed a software program that provides efficient and highly accurate localization for the Mars rover, a mobile geological laboratory (see illustration) able to traverse the Martian surface and gather scientific samples. Due to Dr. Li's efforts, the rover will be able to locate itself on the Martian surface much more accurately than in the previous Mars Pathfinder mission. In addition, the team will produce extremely accurate maps (such as DEM, orthophoto, traverse maps of the landing site) in near real-time, greatly aiding mission scientists.