A mighty dust storm swirled around the Opportunity rover on June 10, 2018, forcing the robot to shut itself off and conserve power. The dust blocked out nearly all the sunlight, turning day to night.
Opportunity would never awake. On Wednesday,…
Category: Opportunity Rover
The Opportunity rover is dead
The Opportunity rover is dead, at age 15.
After spending over 5,000 Martian days rumbling through the inhospitable red desert planet, NASA acknowledged on Wednesday that its sun-powered exploration rover hasn’t responded to over 600 attempts at contact since June 2018, and is presumed dead.
“I’m standing here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude to declare the Opportunity mission as complete,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Deprived of sunlight by a dust storm the size of North America, Opportunity came to rest in a place known as “Perseverance Valley,” which sits on the edge of the 14-mile wide Endeavor crater. It is here that the 400-pound machine, built by NASA engineers in Southern California, will now spend millennia getting blanketed in red dust, for the Martian winds don’t ever stop blowing. Its batteries, completely bereft of power, will not turn on again. Read more…
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It’s a dark, sad day for space fans the world over.
NASA is preparing to officially say goodbye to the Mars Opportunity rover, one of its greatest achievements, who’s watch has apparently come to an end.
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NASA holds out hope that the Opportunity rover will phone home
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It’s make or break time for the longest-living rover on Mars.
NASA’s Opportunity rover has survived 15 years exploring the red planet thanks to solar power, but due to an extreme, planet-enveloping dust storm, the space agency hasn’t been able to communicate with it since June 10.
Now, however, the dust is clearing, and NASA is listening for the little rover to phone home once it powers up.
“The sun is breaking through the haze over Perseverance Valley, and soon there will be enough sunlight present that Opportunity should be able to recharge its batteries,” John Callas, Opportunity project manager, said in a statement. Read more…
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NASA’s Opportunity rover is caught in a huge dust storm on Mars, and we don’t know its fate
Day has turned to night for NASA’s Opportunity rover on Mars.
A huge dust storm that’s now 14-million square miles wide, covering a full quarter of the red planet, has blotted out the sun above Perseverance Valley, Opportunity’s home.
And there…