Goodnight Oppy: NASA rover finally bites the dust on Mars after 15 years
Mission designed for 90 days lasted much longer
MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer
This self-portrait of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity comes courtesy of the Sun and the rover's front hazard-avoidance camera. The dramatic snapshot of Opportunity's shadow was taken as the rover continues to move farther into "Endurance Crater." The image was taken on sol 180 (July 26, 2004). (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA's longest-running rover on Mars, Opportunity, has been pronounced dead, 15 years after it landed on the red planet.
The six-wheeled vehicle was built to operate just three months. But it kept going and going until it was finally doomed by a ferocious dust storm eight months ago.
Recommended Videos
Flight controllers made numerous attempts to contact it and sent one final series of recovery commands Tuesday night, accompanied by one last wake-up song, Billie Holiday's "I'll Be Seeing You." There was no response, only silence.
1 / 11
Opportunity used its navigation camera for this northward view of tracks the rover left on a drive from one energy-favorable position on a sand ripple to another. The rover team calls this strategy "hopping from lily pad to lily pad." Opportunity took this image on the 2,235th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (May 8, 2010).(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)This self-portrait of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity comes courtesy of the Sun and the rover's front hazard-avoidance camera. The dramatic snapshot of Opportunity's shadow was taken as the rover continues to move farther into "Endurance Crater." The image was taken on sol 180 (July 26, 2004). (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)This view combines frames taken by the panoramic camera on Opportunity's 652nd through Nov. 23 to Dec. 5, 2005, at the edge of "Erebus Crater." The mosaic is presented as a vertical projection. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell)This self portrait from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows dust accumulation on the rover's solar panels as the mission approached its fifth Martian winter. This is a mosaic of images taken by Opportunity's Pancam during Dec. 21 to Dec. 24, 2011. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.)This north-looking vista image taken by NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity in 2014 shows Wdowiak Ridge, from left foreground to center. This version is presented in false color, which enhances visibility of the rover's wheel tracks at right. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.)This image was taken in 2004 by the panoramic camera onboard Opportunity showing the rover's empty lander, the Challenger Memorial Station, at Meridiani Planum, Mars. The image was acquired on the 24th martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's mission at approximately 13:00 Local Solar Time. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell)This view is from Opportunity's front hazard avoidance camera on Nov. 26, 2014. The scene includes Opportunity's robotic arm, called the "instrument deployment device," at upper left. Portions of the pale bedrock exposed on the ground in front of the rover are within the arm's reach. (image:NASA/JPL-Caltech)The small spherules on the Martian surface in this close-up image are near Fram Crater, visited by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during April 2004. These are examples of the mineral concretions nicknamed "blueberries." (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/USGS)NASA's Opportunity Mars rover passed near this crater in April 2017. The rover team chose to call it "Orion Crater," after the Apollo 16 lunar module. The rover's Panoramic Camera (Pancam) recorded this view, presented in enhanced color to make differences in surface materials more easily visible. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.)This series of images shows simulated views of a darkening Martian sky blotting out the Sun from NASA’s Opportunity rover’s point of view, with the right side simulating Opportunity’s current view in the global dust storm (June 2018). (Image: NASA)Researchers used the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity to capture this view of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring as it passed near Mars on Oct. 19, 2014. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./ASU/TAMU)
Opportunity used its navigation camera for this northward view of tracks the rover left on a drive from one energy-favorable position on a sand ripple to another. The rover team calls this strategy "hopping from lily pad to lily pad." Opportunity took this image on the 2,235th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (May 8, 2010).(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Remarkably spry until communication ceased last June, Opportunity roamed a record 28 miles (45 kilometers) around Mars, setting the off-world driving record, NASA officials said.
Opportunity and its long-dead twin rover, Spirit, found evidence that ancient Mars had water flowing on its surface and might have been capable of sustaining microbial life.
The golf-cart sized rover arrived on the surface of Mars on Jan. 24, 2004. The mission was designed to last 90 days, but engineers said due to wind blowing dust off Opportunity's solar panels the mission continued for years beyond expectations.
In the end it was also a "historic" dust storm that concluded the mission. The sky was so dark the solar panels couldn't recharge, according to mission managers.
More than 835 recovery commands were sent to the rover through the Deep Space Network without success before NASA officially ended the mission.
Emilee Speck contributed to this report.
Copyright 2019 by WKMG ClickOrlando - All rights reserved.
