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NASA's Mars Opportunity rover declared dead after record-setting mission
This panoramic image of Mars, released in 2012, fuses 817 images captured by the camera on the Opportunity over a four-month period, showing new rover tracks and an old impact crater. The rover's solar arrays and deck are in the foreground.NASA via AFP - Getty Images
Feb. 13, 2019, 1:06 PM CST
By Denise Chow
After falling silent eight months ago during a severe dust storm that swept across the Red Planet, NASA's Mars Opportunity rover has been officially declared dead.
NASA made the announcement Wednesday during an emotional media briefing at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The agency said it had ended its efforts to communicate with Opportunity after sending more than 1,000 radio signals its way, including some just last night.
"I was there yesterday and I was there with the team as these commands went out into the deep sky, and I learned this morning that we had not heard back," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told reporters. "Opportunity remains silent."
The Opportunity rover landed on Mars in January 2004, on a mission to search for clues of past water activity on the Red Planet.Artist's conception by NASA/JPL-Caltech
Opportunity touched down on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004. During the 15 years it spent trundling across the planet, the rover provided evidence confirming that water once flowed on the Martian surface — suggesting that Mars might once have been habitable — and beamed back a series of stark photos of the barren landscape.
The golf cart-sized rover also set a record for off-world driving, clocking a total of 28 miles.
This panoramic image of Mars, released in 2012, fuses 817 images captured by the camera on the Opportunity over a four-month period, showing new rover tracks and an old impact crater. The rover's solar arrays and deck are in the foreground.NASA via AFP - Getty Images
Feb. 13, 2019, 1:06 PM CST
By Denise Chow
After falling silent eight months ago during a severe dust storm that swept across the Red Planet, NASA's Mars Opportunity rover has been officially declared dead.
NASA made the announcement Wednesday during an emotional media briefing at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The agency said it had ended its efforts to communicate with Opportunity after sending more than 1,000 radio signals its way, including some just last night.
"I was there yesterday and I was there with the team as these commands went out into the deep sky, and I learned this morning that we had not heard back," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told reporters. "Opportunity remains silent."
The Opportunity rover landed on Mars in January 2004, on a mission to search for clues of past water activity on the Red Planet.Artist's conception by NASA/JPL-Caltech
Opportunity touched down on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004. During the 15 years it spent trundling across the planet, the rover provided evidence confirming that water once flowed on the Martian surface — suggesting that Mars might once have been habitable — and beamed back a series of stark photos of the barren landscape.
The golf cart-sized rover also set a record for off-world driving, clocking a total of 28 miles.
