LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE >> Eleven years and two months after a hypothetical race began, NASA’s Opportunity rover glided to the finish line of the first off-Earth marathon, the agency announced Tuesday.

“This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance of a marathon on the surface of another world,” John Callas, Opportunity project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement.

Launched on July 7, 2003, Opportunity landed on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004. As a single-string rover, it doesn’t have any electronic redundancies. So if something goes haywire, that’s the end of that function.

The rover originally had a three-month prime mission but has continued to operate way beyond its expected lifespan.

Its twin rover, Spirit, went out of commission in March 2010 after six years, 4.8 miles and about 128,000 raw images, according to the Mars Exploration website.

“This mission isn’t about setting distance records, of course; it’s about making scientific discoveries on Mars and inspiring future explorers to achieve even more,” Steve Squyres, Opportunity principal investigator at Cornell University, said in a statement. “Still, running a marathon on Mars feels pretty cool.”

In June, Opportunity became the world’s long-distance champion when it beat a previous record set by the former Soviet Union’s Lunokhod 2 moon rover. At the time, Opportunity’s odometer read 25 miles.

The rover’s final “sprint” to the finish line was a 153-feet drive.

NASA’s Opportunity team at JPL plans to run a 26.2-mile relay at the laboratory next week to celebrate the rover’s accomplishment.

In its scientific capacity — not as an endurance athlete — Opportunity provided evidence of ancient Martian environments where liquid water soaked the ground and flowed on the Red Planet’s surface. In Endeavour Crater, it also discovered ancient wet conditions less acidic and more favorable for microbial life.