Space

Opportunity rover may be dying as Martian storm intensifies

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Artist's concept of the Opportunity rover
NASA
This series of images shows simulated views of a darkening Martian sky blotting out the Sun from NASA’s Opportunity rover’s point of view
NASA/JPL-Caltech/TAMU

Graphic comparing atmospheric opacity in different Mars years from the point of view of NASA’s Opportunity rover
NASA/JPL-Caltech/TAMU
These two views from NASA’s Curiosity rover, acquired specifically to measure the amount of dust inside Gale Crater, show that dust has increased over three days from a major Martian dust storm
NASA/JPL-Caltech/TAMU

Artist's concept of the Opportunity rover
NASA
Mars, as seen from the Mars Global Surveyor
NASA
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As a giant dust storm roars across a quarter of the face of Mars, NASA's Opportunity rover is facing possible extinction. In a teleconference, NASA engineers announced today that mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California has lost contact with the unmanned probe, as the storm prevents the craft's solar panels from charging its batteries.

The Opportunity rover has had a remarkable career as its original 90-day mission stretched into 15 years, but there is a chance that its life is coming to an end. The dust storm that was first detected by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 30th has grown to cover 14 million mi² (35 million km²) and is so severe at the Perseverance Valley location that Opportunity's solar panels can't provide enough power to keep operating.

According to a NASA spokesman, the dust storm is of unprecedented severity, and has essentially turned the area around Opportunity pitch black even at noon. The solar panels, which normally produce 645 Watt/hours of electricity, have dropped to below 22 Watt/hours.

When the storm began, mission control ordered the rover to go into a low-power mode where it concentrated power to the batteries and the radio link. The batteries are needed to keep the systems operating and to run the heaters that keep the robotic explorer from freezing during the Martian night – an event from which is would not recover. In the low-power mode, Opportunity slept, awoke in the morning, established contact with Earth via one of the Mars orbiters, then went back to sleep.

NASA engineers were able to make contact with Opportunity on Sunday, but by today conditions had deteriorated to the point where the radio link has failed completely. The space agency says that the rover is now in a fault mode, where all systems are shut down except for the mission clock, which will wake the craft periodically to check power levels. If these are too low, the systems shut down again. If the power levels generated remain below 22 Watt/hours, even the clock will fail and the rover will have to rely on resetting internal timers to awaken itself.

Even if the storm abates, it will take several days for the batteries to recharge enough for Opportunity to go back online. Unfortunately, the storm is growing in strength and may engulf all of Mars. The only good news is that it's early summer in the region, the dust is acting as an insulator, and the storm is warming the air, so the rover is being kept at a temperature above its failure level. However, if the storm continues for very long or too much dust settles on the solar panels, then this could mean the end of Opportunity.

Source: NASA

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3 comments
SimonClarke
Is this storm created due to global warming? It seems to be the answer to everything here.
Nik
.....and people are proposing to try and live in those conditions? Someone must have left the asylum doors unlocked.
ProfessorWhat
I've always wondered since Spirit died why they never designed a separate preprogrammed bot-arm, like a mini Canadarm to blow or sweep off the panels when it's already been known for years and years that Mars is very dusty and dirty, after such events like this. Like one of those cleaning/assisting bot-arms from the old 50's-60's house-of-tomorrow cartoons.