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It's too late to give a farewell, but it's never too late to say goodbye - The Story of Opportunity - Science Feed

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People say records are meant to be broken, but first, we have to make records then someone else would break it. Isn't it? The Opportunity Rover is that kind of thing we're talkin' bout, the rover that NASA Launched on July 7, 2003, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover program, which is as planned to last 90-sol duration of activity (slightly more than 90 Earth days). But it gives 14 years of service which is a remarkable achievement. Opportunity landed in Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin Spirit (MER-A) touched down on the other side of the planet.

Opportunity didn't survive for over 14 years because its mission was easy. It encountered challenges that required its engineers to be resourceful. For instance, the rover's right-front wheel sometimes drew more current than the other wheels, so engineers often drove the rover backward to extend the right front wheel's life.

Opportunity was able to stay operational for 5111 sols after landing, maintaining its power and key systems through continual recharging of its batteries using solar power, and hibernating during events such as dust storms to save power. On April 26, 2005, Opportunity's wheels dug into a soft, wind-sculpted sand ripple and got stuck for several nail-biting weeks at Purgatory Dune. But after extensive testing in a Mars-like sandbox at JPL, the team was able to carefully shimmy out of the Martian sand trap.

In its record-breaking time on Mars, the rover drove more than 28 miles, finding some of the first definitive signs of past liquid water on the red planet's surface. Opportunity has been a fertile training ground for the many hundreds of engineers and planetary scientists who have learned at their robotic knees. A number have gone on to lead other space missions. Many of those currently operating Opportunity are sharing their expertise part-time with other missions exploring our solar system. For most, working on Spirit (Opportunity's twin) and Opportunity has been transformative.

Opportunity encountered two mission-threatening dust storms that blocked sunlight from reaching its solar panels. It survived a dust storm in 2007 by minimizing activities and maintaining enough power in its batteries to recover when the skies cleared. Unfortunately, the 2018 dust storm blotted out even more sunlight and kept the skies above Opportunity dark about a month longer.

At a press conference at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, NASA bid farewell to the rover it placed on Mars on January 25, 2004: before Facebook, before the iPhone, and even before some of the scientists now in charge of it graduated high school.

NASA is planning to launch another Mars Rover this year, but it seems to be delayed because of a pandemic caused by Coronavirus. We will see what's going to happen very soon until then this is Science Feed saying goodbye to you all.


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