NASA's Record-Setting Opportunity Rover Mission on Mars Comes to End

One of the most successful and enduring tricks of Interplanetary Exploration, NASA's Opposite Rover Mission is an end after nearly 15 years after searching for Mars's surface and helping NASA build the base to return to the red planet.

Opportunity rover stopped communicating with the Earth when a severe storm-stormed storm in June 2018 had vacated its place. After more than a thousand orders to restore the contact, the engineers performed their last in Space Flight Operations in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Trying to revive on Tuesday, there is no benefit. The last communication of solar-powered rover was received on June 10.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstein said, "This is due to trailblazing missions in the form of an opportunity that will come one day when our brave astronauts will run on the surface of Mars." "And when that day comes, some part of that first footprint will be owned by the men and women of the occasion, and a little rover who defied the obstacles and did so much in the name of exploration."

Designed for only 90 Martian days and traveling 1,100 yards (1,000 meters), the opportunity exceeded all expectations in endurance, scientific value and longevity. In addition to exceeding 60 times his life expectancy, Rover traveled more than 28 miles (45 kilometers), as long as he reached his most suitable last resting place on Mars - firmly in the valley.


"For more than a decade, the opportunity has been an icon in the field of exploration, which is teaching us about the ancient past of Mars, which is a wet, potentially sustainable planet, and reveals unwanted martian scenarios. "Said Thomas Zürbchen, Associate Administrator of NASA's Science. Mission Directorate. "Whatever the disadvantages we now feel, we should be involved with this knowledge that the heritage of opportunity is continuing - along with the Curiosity Rover and Insight Lander on the surface of Mars - and in the clean rooms of JPL, where the upcoming Mars 2020 The saver is taking shape. "

The final transmission sent through NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Complex, through the 70-meter Mars Station Antenna, in California, eliminated a multilateral, eight-month recovery strategy in an attempt to force Rover to communicate.

John Callus, manager of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project at OPL, said, "We have made every reasonable engineering effort to recover the opportunity and it has determined that the probability of receiving the signal is very low."

Opportunity Landed in the Meridiani Plym area of Mars on January 24, 2004, seven months after the launch of Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Twin Rover, landed 103 miles wide (166 kilometers wide) on the other side of Mars, 20 days ago in Gusev Crater. Before completing his mission in May 2011, the soul covered about 5 miles (8 kilometers).

On the day of the landing, mission engineers, rover drivers and a team of scientists on earth collaborated to overcome the challenges and get a rover from a geothermal site on Mars. He prepared the way to work above the rugged terrain so that 384-pounds (174-kilogram) Martian Explorer could maneuver around and sometimes, rocks and boulders, standing in the form of 32-degree (off-Earth record) Climb the steep slope. ), Check the crater floor, peak hills, and the potentially dry river edges. Its last venture brought it firmly into the western part of the valley.

JPL director Michael Watkins said, "I can not think of a more suitable place for the opportunity to be called the valley of perseverance on the surface of Mars." "The record of this fearless little rover, findings, and sheer tenacity is the will to create and guide the people, the simplicity, dedication and perseverance directed."

More Opportunity Achievements

• Set a one-day Mars driving record on March 20, 2005, when it traveled 721 feet (220 meters).
• Returned more than 217,000 pictures including 15000-degree color panorama.
• To reveal the fresh mineral surfaces for analysis, 52 surfaces of rocks were exposed and cleared 72 additional targets with a brush to prepare them for spectrum and inspection with a micro imager.
• Hematite, a mineral that is made in water, found at its landing site.
• A strong gesture on the Endeavor Crater on the action of ancient water, similar to drinking water from a pond or lake on the lake.

For the primary purpose of Mars Exploration Rovers, off-roading and on-the-location scientific analysis were in all services: to obtain the historical climate of the climate of the red planet and the places where the conditions can once be favorable for life. Because life requires liquid water, as we know, discoveries of opportunity have speculated that conditions in the Meridian Planham may be suitable for some time in Martian history.

Steve Squieres, the chief investigator at Rovers Science Payload at Cornell University, said, "With Gate-Go, opportunities for our search in relation to water." "And when you connect the discoveries of the occult and soul, they showed us that the ancient Mars today is a very different place from Mars, which is a cold, dry and desolate world. But if you look at its ancient past You get compelling evidence: liquid water under the surface and liquid water on the surface. "

All those achievements were not without topical supernatural obstacles. In 2005 alone, the opportunity lost steering to one of its front wheels, a stuck heater threatened to severely limit the available power of the rover, and a martian sand wave almost trapped him for good. Two years later, a two-month dust storm shook the rover even before relieving it. In 2015, the opportunity lost its 256-megabyte of flash memory and in 2017, it lost steering for its other front wheel.

Every time the rover had to face an obstacle, the team of Opportunity on Earth found and implemented a solution that bounced the rover back. However, dust-filled storms in the summer of 2018 proved to be very much for the most senior Mars explorer in history.

"When I think about the opportunity, I will remember that place on Mars where our fearless rover has crossed all expectations," said Kailus. "But I think that I will affect most, the opportunity has an impact on the earth here, it is a perfect exploration and unprecedented discovery, a generation of young scientists and engineers who have become space explorers with this mission. Follows. " With our every step. And this is the technical legacy of Mars Exploration Rovers, which is placed on Curiosity and the upcoming Mars 2020 mission. Farewell, opportunity, and well done. "

Mars's search continues uninterrupted. NASA's Insight Lander, which touched on November 26, is launching its scientific investigation right now. Curiosity Rover has been searching for Gay Crater for more than six years. And, NASA's Mars 2020 Rover and European Space Agency's Exomoros Rover will be launched in July 2020, it will be the first Rover mission designed to look for signs of previous microbial life on the red planet.