NASA has sent its last message to the Opportunity Mars rover. But it doesn’t expect a reply.
The robot has been silent for the past eight months, disappearing amid an intense dust storm on the red planet. As the thick dust whipped up and around the rover – and across the entirety of Mars – the sunlight that powers it was blocked and its batteries ran out.
NASA has now issued a last series of recovery commands. It joins more than 1,000 messages that have been sent in an attempt to wake up the rover.
The space agency will reveal the results of that last attempt at a major press conference. That event will probably see it declare Opportunity dead, after 15 years and many miles spent exploring Mars.Opportunity and its twin rover Spirit landed on the surface of Mars in January 2004 and were only expected to survive their roles as geologic explorers for 3 months. Spirit was declared "dead" in 2011. Both rovers contributed beyond measure to our knowledge of the geologic record of Mars, including evidence that water once flowed on the surface.
The Curiosity and InSight landers continue their missions on the surface of Mars. May they enjoy the longevity and success of their pioneering predecessors.
(Image: Opportunity's tracks in the Martian surface; NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State)
2 comments:
I just watched the movie First Man, and what stuck with me was Neil Armstrong's wife responding angrily about how the NASA teams were sending their astronauts up in models made of balsa wood. It was vicariously terrifying to sit through some of those early voyages as the rockets shuddered, squeaked, and rattled through the atmosphere. They were in virgin territory, and every new mission was a giant leap of faith.
So to know that these later exploratory machines were launched and monitored for decades, like Voyager and the Mars rover, and provided us with massive amounts of information and data is a true miracle. And Hubbel now, with those glorious visions of galaxies beyond...we live in amazing times.
donnah -- and to think all of that is happening in an era whose attention isn't even primarily focused on space exploration. I think of how much further we could be now had we not been distracted by wars and foolish priorities, and governed by short- sighted pols.
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