The End of NASA’s Opportunity Rover

On February 12th, 2019, NASA’s Mars rover team made one final attempt to contact Opportunity, but with no avail. On the 13th, NASA officially declared that the mission was over.

Opportunity roamed the surface of Mars for fifteen years, making it the longest time any robot has spent exploring another world. In those fifteen years Opportunity made many important discoveries, such as the presence of gypsum. Gypsum is a mineral formed in water, which suggests that there was once water on Mars. Along with all of it’s scientific endeavors, Opportunity also sent 217 594 photos of the surface of Mars back to Earth, which gave scientists a better understanding of the planet’s geology.

The mission was originally only supposed to last 90 days, with the goal of travelling 1 100 yards in that time. In the fifteen years that it spent on the planet’s surface, Opportunity traveled 28 miles (just over a marathon).

The start of the rover’s demise began in June of 2018, when a planet-wide dust storm either damaged the rover itself or covered it’s solar panels in dust and debris. With no power, the rover was unable to contact Earth. The rover team worked for eight months but unfortunately, Opportunity never responded.

However, Opportunity is not the end of human exploration on Mars. NASA’s InSight lander touched down in November of 2018, and the Curiosity rover has been exploring the red planet for six years. NASA’s 2020 rover and the European Space Agency’s ExoMars will both launch in July of 2020.

(Photo of Opportunity’s shadow - NASA/JPL- Caltech)

-Grace Tunski, The Victoria Voice School Newspaper