Share: Space Mars Opportunity rover ends its missionPosted by Editors of EarthSky and February 14, 2019
Help EarthSky keep going! Please donate what you can to our annual crowd-funding campaign. On Tuesday (February 13, 2019) NASA announced that its Mars Opportunity rover mission one of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration was at an end after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars. The Opportunity rover stopped communicating with Earth when a severe Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location in June 2018. After more than a thousand commands to restore contact, engineers in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) made their last attempt to revive Opportunity on Tuesday, to no avail. The solar-powered rovers final communication was received June 10, 2018. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement:
Designed to last just 90 Martian days and travel 1,100 yards (1,000 meters), Opportunity vastly surpassed all expectations in its endurance, scientific value and longevity. In addition to exceeding its life expectancy by 60 times, the rover traveled more than 28 miles (45 km) by the time it reached its most appropriate final resting spot on Mars Perseverance Valley. The dramatic image of NASAs Mars Exploration Rover Opportunitys shadow was taken on sol 180 (July 26, 2004) by the rovers front hazard-avoidance camera as the rover moved farther into Endurance Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.The final transmission ended a multifaceted, eight-month recovery strategy in an attempt to compel the rover to communicate. John Callas, manager of the Mars Exploration Rover project at JPL, said in a statement: Artists concept of the Mars Opportunity rover. Image via NASA. Opportunity landed in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars on January 24, 2004, seven months after its launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Its twin rover, Spirit, landed 20 days earlier in the 103-mile-wide (166-km-wide) Gusev Crater on the other side of Mars. Spirit logged almost 5 miles (8 km) before its mission wrapped up in May 2011. Opportunity snapped this picture of its lander and deflated air bag cocoon in Eagle Crater. Image via NASA/JPL Caltech/Cornell.From the day Opportunity landed, a team of mission engineers, rover drivers and scientists on Earth collaborated to overcome challenges and get the rover from one geologic site on Mars to the next. They plotted workable avenues over rugged terrain so that the 384-pound (174-kilogram) Martian explorer could maneuver around and, at times, over rocks and boulders, climb gravel-strewn slopes as steep as 32 degrees (an off-Earth record), probe crater floors, summit hills and traverse possible dry riverbeds. Its final venture brought it to the western limb of Perseverance Valley. The rover featured an array of scientific tools. Image via NASA/JPL Caltech/Cornell.More Opportunity Achievements Set a one-day Mars driving record March 20, 2005, when it traveled 721 feet (220 meters).
All of the off-roading and on-location scientific analyses were in service of the Mars Exploration Rovers primary objective: To seek out historical evidence of the red planets climate and water at sites where conditions may once have been favorable for life. Because liquid water is required for life as we know it, Opportunitys discoveries implied that conditions at Meridiani Planum may have been habitable for some period of time in Martian history. Steve Squyres is principal investigator of the rovers science payload at Cornell University. He said:
All those accomplishments were not without the occasional extraterrestrial impediment. In 2005 alone, Opportunity lost steering to one of its front wheels, a stuck heater threatened to severely limit the rovers available power, and a Martian sand ripple almost trapped it for good. Two years later, a two-month dust storm imperiled the rover before relenting. In 2015, Opportunity lost use of its 256-megabyte flash memory and, in 2017, it lost steering to its other front wheel. A layer of dust covers Opportunitys solar arrays following a dust storm in January 2014, left, but by March 2014 much of the dust had blown away. Image via NASA/JPL Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State.Each time the rover faced an obstacle, Opportunitys team on Earth found and implemented a solution that enabled the rover to bounce back. However, the massive dust storm that took shape in the summer of 2018 proved too much for historys most senior Mars explorer. Mars exploration continues. NASAs InSight lander, which touched down on November 26, 2018, is just beginning its scientific investigations. The Curiosity rover has been exploring Gale Crater for more than six years. And, NASAs Mars 2020 rover and the European Space Agencys ExoMars rover both will launch in July 2020, becoming the first rover missions designed to seek signs of past microbial life on the red planet. Bottom line: On February 13, 2019, NASAs Opportunity rover ended its 15-year mission on Mars. Via NASA TwitterFacebookPinterest2BufferShare 2 SHARES Posted February 14, 2019 in SpaceAbout the Author: The EarthSky team has a blast bringing you daily updates on your cosmos and world. We love your photos and welcome your news tips. Earth, Space, Human World, Tonight. Like what you read? |