Farewell Opportunity (2003-2019)

[ahmedreda]

A nice cartoon for the Spirit mission but also applicable to Opportunity.

[tugger]

It's sad an depressing this doesn't get more coverage. They put something on another effing planet and it lasted YEARS instead of 90 days.

[merle]

Here's a few videos on Opportunity to give a sense of the extent of it's incredible mission...


https://youtu.be/1Ll-VHYxWXU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsMb2RBxq4o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlElwjpgjoM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZBHHXDUSI8

[SEmert]

Last communication heard from Opportunity last June 10th.
"My batteries are low and it's getting dark."
As reported by Scott Manley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2oFtu_KAbI&ut=
at 0:50

[Sureshks]

If you haven't seen Opportunity's last image...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanoc ... r-on-mars/

It was taken on June 10, 2018 and shows a vast darkness.

The dust storm had already moved in. Sunlight was already down to .002% of normal, which was at the level of very deep twilight here on Earth.

I also read that when Opportunity landed, there was a glitch that caused NASA to switch the internal heaters to keep constantly running. The idea was that there would be just enough power to keep the rover alive during the very cold Martian nights. Without this change, the mission leaders surmised that Opportunity may last just the initial three months.

But 15 years later, with the dust storm raging, the switched on heaters kept draining the limited battery power. Apparently, there was no way to switch that back off. There was a feeling that had the heaters not been on, that Opportunity just might've survived in safe mode.

Suresh