The Ends

Artist's rendition of Mars rover Opportunity at work

LOST OPPORTUNITY: Sad news from the nation's Space Agency today. Opportunity, an over-achieving Mars rover launched, has reached the end of the line. 

In all NASA has sent over 1,000 messages to Opportunity since it fell silent during the epic dust storm on the Red Planet.

Opportunity's identical twin, Spirit, was pronounced dead in 2011, a year after it got stuck in sand and, eventually, communication ceased.

Though it's sad to see it go, Opportunity's mission is certainly one to be celebrated! Below is a shadow 'selfie' the rover took during its first year on Mars.

Launched from Cape Canaveral in 2003, Opportunity literally bounced onto the Martian surface, landing on Meridiani Planum, on Jan. 24, 2004. (Its twin, Spirit, was on the other side of Mars, landing at Gusev Crater 20 days earlier.) 

By far the longest-lasting lander on Mars, the six-wheeled, golf-cart-sized rover set a roaming record of 28.06 miles - the longest off-Earth trek by any rover. 

Originally slated for a 90-day mission, the intrepid rover rolled on for 14-plus years.
Here's a short overview of the mission: https://youtu.be/1Ll-VHYxWXU

At 11 a.m. our time, the kids and I tuned in to a NASA press conference announcing the official end of Opportunity. Today's briefing participants included NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Lori Glaze, acting director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, Michael Watkins, JPL director, Steve Squyres, MER principal investigator at Cornell University, John Callas, MER project manager, Matt Golombek, MER project scientist, Abigail Fraeman, MER deputy project scientist and Jennifer Trosper, Mars 2020 project systems engineer.

Here's CJ's recap of what we learned during the hour-long event. ...

On June 10th of 2018, NASA's Opportunity rover, which had been on Mars for approximately 14 years by that point, "went silent," meaning that NASA was no longer able to contact the rover, or receive data from it. On February 13, 2019, NASA officially cancelled the Opportunity mission, largely due to the rover's silence and increasingly worn equipment. Opportunity accompanied Spirit, which was active until 2010 (when it became stuck in one area), and was joined by the Curiosity rover in 2012. (Curiosity is still on the job!)

On the day NASA officially canned the (venerable, by Mars technology standards) Opportunity mission, they had an event broadcast on NASA TV, their official TV station. The event featured a number of prominent people at NASA, including Mike Watkins, Jim Bridenstine, Steve Squyres, and Matt Golombek, among others. Some of those who worked on Opportunity in its early days told their stories about working on and with Opportunity, including the landing process.

Opportunity was only intended to last ninety days, but lasted for over fourteen years, largely due to the utilization of a technique referred to as "deep sleep." Every night, Opportunity could turn off its equipment and lose temperature, and, at the end of the night, turn back on, because enough heat had been preserved through the night. This allowed Opportunity to conserve power, and thus keep going well into the 2010s.

What CJ didn't mention above is that the 'deep sleep' was not a planned part of Oppy's operation. It became necessary when a part on one of the rover's 'legs' started to malfunction and overheat. That necessitated engineers to come up with a work around. They decided to power the whole rover down every night as a way of allowing it to continue to operate for a few hours each day. One scientist said it was akin to flipping the breaker on your electrical service panel to turn off your lights rather than using a light switch.

Annabelle has this to share about the news conference we watched today. ...

After nearly 15 years of exploration on Mars, the Opportunity rover has been given its last command. The rover launched in 2003 and landed in 2004, with an original planned mission of 90 days. The mission ended up being functional until June 10th of 2018, where the rover went "silent" and was unable to send data back to Earth due to accumulation of dust and lack of sunlight.

Today there was a press conference directly from JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) about how the end of the Opportunity mission has inspired ideas for future missions and what we can learn from it. NASA and JPL are planning to use some of the discoveries they made with Opportunity and its "twin", Spirit, to develop designs and plans for future missions, even deciding landing sites!

A number of engineers and NASA employees including Mike Watkins (JPL Director), Jim Bridenstine (NASA Administrator), and Abigail Fraeman (a research scientist who was a student at the time of launch) described how they felt attached to this mission, almost as if Opportunity was a friend or family member. They mentioned how both rovers had made great discoveries that expanded possibilities when they discovered leftovers of sulfuric acid and water on the surface embedded in rocks. Opportunity trekked through dunes, valleys, and craters, getting stuck occasionally but continuing to power through well past its 90-day initial mission. Hopefully other Mars missions are just as successful as Opportunity, starting with the planned "Mars 2020" rover set to launch mid-July.

Project manager John Callas told The Associated Press the end of the mission is melancholy. “It’s just like a loved one who’s gone missing, and you keep holding out hope that they will show up and that they’re healthy,” he said. “But each passing day that diminishes, and at some point you have to say ‘enough’ and move on with your life.”

The biggest take away from today? I think it's that the story of Opportunity (and Spirit) is not over. Their lessons live on in current and future Mars missions. 

Some of feathers in the twins' caps include discovering that Mars had the wet and warm conditions, potentially hospitable to life, in its ancient past. Opportunity was the first rover to identify and characterize sedimentary rocks on a planet other than Earth, and discovered small spheres of hematite nicknamed "blueberries" (pictured below) that formed late from rising, acidic groundwater. 

On the rim of Endeavour crater, the rover found white veins of the mineral gypsum, which scientists say is a telltale sign of water that once traveled through underground fractures. 


During its run, Opportunity and its team overcame dozens of challenges. For instance, after the rover landed at Eagle Crater, its wheels slipped on the loose slopes. The rover team had to come up with new driving strategies to get out. Similarly, when Oppy visited Endurance Crater, it encountered slopes as steep as 31 degrees. On April 26, 2005, the rover's wheels got stuck for several weeks in a spot dubbed "Purgatory Dune." However, after extensive testing in a Mars-like sandbox at JPL, the team was able to carefully navigate Opportunity out of the Martian sand trap.

Combined, Opportunity and Spirit returned over 342,000 raw images, all of which were posted online for everyone's enjoyment and amazement.

For highlights of the Mars Exploration Rover mission, visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/highlights/


For more information about the Mars Exploration Rover program, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer

You can watch a replay of the briefing here: https://youtu.be/cnddzE4YSzg or via the embedded video, below.


Farewell and rest easy, Rover. I predict some day - perhaps in my lifetime - humans will come find you, dust you off, and give you a jump start. 

SO LONG, SAFECO: This morning, for a few minutes, the kids and I watched Safeco Field being dismantled.

OK, so it wasn't our entire beloved ballpark. Rather, the prominent Safeco Field sign was being removed, as naming rights to the home of the Seattle Mariners have been sold. (Its new name is T-Mobile Park and we are already cringing at the thought of the place turning T-Mobile magenta, as is their branding practice.)

Local news station KING 5 was broadcasting the event live. In the screen shot below, if you look on the sidewalk, you can see the S A and F letters are already down. 

We speculated about the weight of the letters (500 pounds? More? Less?) and where those letters will wind up. Hopefully not on a scrap pile! I'd be happy to put them on my roof. :)

Perhaps they'll go to Safeco Insurance, who paid for them to begin with, or maybe they'll wind up at MOHAI (the Museum of History and Industry). MOHAI has an impressive collection of signs from other Seattle icons.