mars opportunity mission parts quotation

Opportunity, also known as MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B) or MER-1, is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 until 2018.Opportunity was operational on Mars for 5111 sols (14 years, 138 days on Earth). Launched on July 7, 2003, as part of NASA"s Mars Exploration Rover program, it landed in Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin, sol duration of activity (slightly less than 92.5 Earth days), Spirit functioned until it got stuck in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, while Opportunity was able to stay operational for 5111 sols after landing, maintaining its power and key systems through continual recharging of its batteries using solar power, and hibernating during events such as dust storms to save power. This careful operation allowed Opportunity to operate for 57 times its designed lifespan, exceeding the initial plan by 14 years, 47 days (in Earth time). By June 10, 2018, when it last contacted NASA,

Mission highlights included the initial 90-sol mission, finding meteorites such as Heat Shield Rock (Meridiani Planum meteorite), and over two years of exploring and studying Victoria crater. The rover survived moderate dust storms and in 2011 reached Endeavour crater, which has been considered as a "second landing site."Opportunity mission is considered one of NASA"s most successful ventures.

Due to the planetary 2018 dust storm on Mars, Opportunity ceased communications on June 10 and entered hibernation on June 12, 2018. It was hoped it would reboot once the weather cleared,Opportunity mission was complete, after the spacecraft had failed to respond to over 1,000 signals sent since August 2018.

Collectively, the Opportunity and Spirit rovers were part of the Mars Exploration Rover program in the long-term Mars Exploration Program. The Mars Exploration Program"s four principal goals were to determine if the potential for life exists on Mars (in particular, whether recoverable water may be found on Mars), to characterize the Mars climate and its geology, and then to prepare for a potential human mission to Mars. The Mars Exploration Rovers were to travel across the Martian surface and perform periodic geologic analyses to determine if water ever existed on Mars as well as the types of minerals available, as well as to corroborate data taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).Spirit and Opportunity were launched a month apart, on June 10 and July 8, 2003, and both reached the Martian surface by January 2004. Both rovers were designed with an expected 90 sols (92 Earth days) lifetime, but each lasted much longer than expected. Spirit"s mission lasted 20 times longer than its expected lifetime, and its mission was declared ended on May 25, 2011, after it got stuck in soft sand and expended its power reserves trying to free itself. Opportunity lasted 55 times longer than its 90 sol planned lifetime, operating for 5498 days from landing to mission end. An archive of weekly updates on the rover"s status can be found at the Opportunity Update Archive.

From its initial landing, by chance, into an impact crater amidst an otherwise generally flat plain, Opportunity successfully investigated regolith and rock samples and took panoramic photos of its landing site. Its sampling allowed NASA scientists to make hypotheses concerning the presence of hematite and past presence of water on the surface of Mars.Endurance crater, which it explored from June to December 2004.Opportunity examined the impact site of its own heat shield and discovered an intact meteorite, now known as Heat Shield Rock, on the surface of Mars.

From late April to early June 2005, Opportunity was perilously lodged in a sand dune, with several wheels buried in the sand. Over a six-week period, Earth-based physical simulations were performed to decide how best to extract the rover from its position without risking its permanent immobilization. Successful maneuvering a few centimeters at a time eventually freed the rover, which resumed its travels.

Opportunity was directed to proceed in a southerly direction to Erebus crater, a large, shallow, partially buried crater and a stopover on the way south towards Victoria crater, between October 2005 and March 2006. It experienced some mechanical problems with its robotic arm.

In late September 2006, Opportunity reached Victoria crater and explored along the rim in a clockwise direction. In June 2007 it returned to Duck Bay, its original arrival point at Victoria crater; in September 2007 it entered the crater to begin a detailed study. In August 2008, Opportunity left Victoria crater for Endeavour crater, which it reached on August 9, 2011.

Here at the rim of the Endeavour crater, the rover moved around a geographic feature named Cape York. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had detected phyllosilicates there, and the rover analyzed the rocks with its instruments to check this sighting on the ground. This structure was analyzed in depth until summer 2013. In May 2013 the rover was heading south to a hill named

In December 2014, NASA reported that Opportunity was suffering from "amnesia" events in which the rover failed to write data, e.g. telemetry information, to non-volatile memory. The hardware failure was believed to be due to an age-related fault in one of the rover"s seven memory banks. As a result, NASA had aimed to force the rover"s software to ignore the failed memory bank;

On February 12, 2019,Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)"s Space Flight Operations Facility to watch final commands being transmitted to Opportunity via the 70-meter (230-foot) dish of the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California. Following 25 minutes of transmission of the final 4 sets of commands, communication attempts with the rover were handed off to Canberra, Australia.

More than 835 recovery commands were transmitted since losing signal in June 2018 to the end of January 2019 with over 1000 recovery commands transmitted before February 13, 2019.Opportunity mission is complete."I"ll Be Seeing You" performed by Billie Holiday.Opportunity were transitioned to support the Mars rovers

The final communication from the rover came on June 10, 2018 (sol 5111) from Perseverance Valley,Watt-hours for the sol, and the highest atmospheric opacity (tau) ever measured on Mars: 10.8.

During the next two decades, NASA will continue to conduct missions with other spacecraft to address whether life ever arose on Mars. The search begins with determining whether the Martian environment was ever suitable for life. Life, as we understand it, requires water, so the history of water on Mars is critical to finding out if the Martian environment was ever conducive to life. Although the Mars Exploration Rovers did not have the ability to detect life directly, they offered very important information on the habitability of the environment in the planet"s history.

Spirit and Opportunity are twin rovers, each a six-wheeled, solar-powered robot standing 1.5 m (5 ft) high, 2.3 m (7+1⁄2 ft) wide, and 1.6 m (5 ft) long and weighing 180 kilograms (400 pounds). Six wheels on a rocker-bogie system enable mobility. Each wheel has its own motor, the vehicle is steered at front and rear and was designed to operate safely at tilts of up to 30 degrees. Its maximum speed is 5 centimeters (2 inches) per second, while its average speed was about a sixth of this (0.89 cm or 3⁄8 in) per second. The drilling mechanisms of both rovers utilize pieces of the fallen World Trade Center"s metal as cable-protecting shields.

Solar arrays generate about 140 watts for up to fourteen hours per sol, while rechargeable lithium ion batteries stored energy for use at night. Opportunity"s onboard computer uses a 20 MHz RAD6000 CPU with 128 MB of DRAM, 3 MB of EEPROM, and 256 MB of flash memory. The rover"s operating temperature ranges from −40 to +40 °C (−40 to 104 °F) and radioisotope heaters provide a base level of heating, assisted by electrical heaters when necessary.aerogel provides insulation.

Communications depend on an omnidirectional low-gain antenna communicating at a low data rate and a steerable high-gain antenna, both in direct contact with Earth. A low gain antenna is also used to relay data to spacecraft orbiting Mars.

Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) – identifies promising rocks and regolith for closer examination, and determines the processes that formed them.

Opportunity was "driven" by several operators throughout its mission, including JPL roboticist Vandi Verma who also cowrote the PLEXIL command language used in its software.

Like Earth, Mars has seasonal variations that reduce sunlight during winter. However, since the Martian year is longer than that of the Earth, the seasons fully rotate roughly once every 2 Earth years.

Another factor that can reduce received power is dust in the atmosphere, especially dust storms.Opportunity and Spirit so much they could only run for a few minutes each day.2018 dust storms on Mars, Opportunity entered hibernation mode on June 12,

Opportunity"s launch was managed by NASA"s Launch Services Program. This was the first launch of the Delta II Heavy. The launch period went from June 25 to July 15, 2003. The first launch attempt occurred on June 28, 2003, but the spacecraft launched nine days later on July 7, 2003, due to delays for range safety and winds, then later to replace items on the rocket (insulation and a battery). Each day had two instantaneous launch opportunities. On the day of launch, the launch was delayed to the second opportunity (11:18 p.m. EDT) in order to fix a valve.

Area around the heat shield, including the resulting shield impact point. The heat shield was released before the rover landed and struck the surface on its own, and the rover later drove to the impact site. Near this location it discovered the first meteorite found on Mars, Heat Shield Rock

Opportunity has provided substantial evidence in support of the mission"s primary scientific goals: to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and regolith that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. In addition to investigating the water, Opportunity has also obtained astronomical observations and atmospheric data.

Honoring Opportunity"s great contribution to the exploration of Mars, an asteroid was named Opportunity: 39382 Opportunity.Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld who, along with Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Tom Gehrels, discovered the asteroid on September 24, 1960. Opportunity"s lander is Challenger Memorial Station.

On July 28, 2014, it was announced that Opportunity, having traversed over 40 km (25 mi), had become the rover achieving the longest off-world distance, surpassing the previous record of 39 km (24 mi) on the Moon by Lunokhod 2.

On March 24, 2015, NASA celebrated Opportunity having traveled the distance of a marathon race, 42.195 km (26.219 mi), from the start of Opportunity"s landing and traveling on Mars.

In March 2016, while trying to reach target on the slope of Marathon Valley in Cape Tribulation, the Mars rover attained a slope of 32 degrees, the highest angle yet for the rover since its mission began. This was so steep that dust that had accumulated on its top panels began to flow downward.

On Sol 3894 (January 6, 2015), Opportunity reached the summit of "Cape Tribulation," which is 135 m (443 ft) above "Botany Bay" level and the highest point yet reached by the rover on the western rim of Endeavour Crater according to NASA.

Opportunity rover "off-world" driving distance record, compared to other rovers. Dashed grey vertical bar represents the Marathon distance of 42.195 km

Opportunity was the first rover to hit the length of a marathon (42.2 km or 26.2 mi), having taken 11 years and 2 months to clock the distance. The JPL technicians celebrated the occasion by running a race.

The rover could take pictures with its different cameras, but only the PanCam camera had the ability to photograph a scene with different color filters. The panorama views are usually built up from PanCam images. By February 3, 2018, Opportunity had returned 224,642 pictures.

"Blueberries": This view displays an area about 6 centimeters across. It was taken at an outcrop named "Kirkwood" at the Cape York on the rim of Endeavour crater on Mars. The spheres seen here are about 3 millimeters in diameter. The Microscopic Imager took this image at 3064 sol.

An example of a rover traverse map featuring a line showing path of the rover, and mission sols, which are Mars days counted from its landing and typical of Mars surface mission time reporting. Topographic lines and various feature names are also common.

With word on February 12, 2019, that NASA was likely to conclude the Opportunity mission, many media outlets and commentators issued statements praising the mission"s success and stating their goodbyes to the rover. One journalist, Jacob Margolis, tweeted his translation of the last data transmission sent by Opportunity on June 10, 2018, as "My battery is low and it"s getting dark." The phrase struck a chord with the public, inspiring a period of mourning, artwork, and tributes to the memory of Opportunity.

When the quote became widely reported, some news reports mistakenly asserted that the rover sent that exact message in English, resulting in NASA being inundated with additional questions. Margolis wrote a clarifying article on February 16, making it clear he had taken statements from NASA officials who were interpreting the data sent by Opportunity, both on the state of its low power and Mars"s high atmospheric opacity, and rephrased them in a poetic manner, never to imply the rover had sent the specific words.

Amazon Studios announced in March 2021 that it was developing a documentary Good Night Oppy based on the rover and its prolonged mission. The documentary was directed by Ryan White, and included support from JPL and Industrial Light & Magic.

Agle, D.C.; Brown, Dwayne; Wendel, JoAnna (February 13, 2019). "NASA"s Opportunity Rover Mission on Mars Comes to End". NASA. Retrieved February 14, 2019.

"Opportunity on verge of new discovery". wustl.edu. September 14, 2011. Archived from the original on September 24, 2011. Retrieved September 17, 2011.

Greicius, Tony (September 24, 2018). "Opportunity Emerges in a Dusty Picture". NASA. Archived from the original on October 15, 2018. Retrieved November 30, 2018.

Greicius, Tony (October 29, 2018). "Update on Opportunity Rover Recovery Efforts". NASA. Archived from the original on November 3, 2018. Retrieved February 23, 2022.

O"Neill, Ian (December 29, 2014). "Mars Rover Opportunity Suffers Worrying Bouts of "Amnesia"". Web article. Discovery News. Archived from the original on December 30, 2014. Retrieved December 31, 2014.

Torbet, Georgina (January 26, 2019). "NASA makes last-ditch attempt to revive dormant Mars rover Opportunity". digitaltrends.com. Designtechnica Corporation. Retrieved January 27, 2019. Now NASA scientists are trying a last-ditch attempt to contact the rover based on three unlikely but possible scenarios: that the rover"s primary X-band radio has failed, that both the primary and secondary X-band radios have failed, or that the rover"s internal clock has become offset. The team is commanding the rover to switch to its backup X-band radio and to reset its clock to counteract these possibilities.

mars.nasa.gov. "Mars Rover Opportunity Busy Through Depth of Winter – Mars News". nasa.gov. Archived from the original on July 26, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2017.

"Europe"s ExoMars mission arrives in the middle of dust season". phys.org. Archived from the original on November 30, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2017.

Malik, Tariq. "As Massive Storm Rages on Mars, Opportunity Rover Falls Silent". Scientific American (Space.com). Archived from the original on June 13, 2018. Retrieved June 13, 2018.

Harwood, William (July 8, 2003). "Opportunity launched to Mars". Spaceflight Now. Archived from the original on January 25, 2016. Retrieved December 18, 2015.

Webster, Guy; Brown, Dwayne (July 28, 2014). "NASA Long-Lived Mars Opportunity Rover Sets Off-World Driving Record". Archived from the original on July 28, 2014. Retrieved July 29, 2014.

Knapp, Alex (July 29, 2014). "NASA"s Opportunity Rover Sets A Record For Off-World Driving". Archived from the original on July 31, 2014. Retrieved July 29, 2014.

"Opportunity"s View in "Botany Bay" Toward "Solander Point"". NASA. July 2, 2013. Archived from the original on August 6, 2013. Retrieved August 14, 2013.

mars.nasa.gov. "Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Press Release Images: Opportunity". nasa.gov. Archived from the original on December 2, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2017.

Now that quote -- along with a replica of the twin robot geologists roving Mars -- is forever enshrined outside the Mission:SPACE attraction at Walt Disney World"s Epcot in Florida. (+View Mission:SPACE Web Site)

NASA provided Disney with tours, briefings and discussions about human and robotic missions, as well as the challenges future missions, like a trip to Mars, might present. The attraction took five years and some 350,000 work-hours to build.

One member of that younger generation joined Administrator O"Keefe for the ceremony. 10-year-old Sofi Collis, who won an essay contest by naming the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, was on hand to activate a replica rover, which rolled across a simulated Martian landscape shortly before the quote was revealed.

As for the real rovers traversing Mars some 300 million miles from Earth, Spirit and Opportunity have made extraordinary discoveries and found important clues to a watery past on the martian surface. The Spirit rover is driving toward the "Columbia Hills," and Opportunity has been making close examinations of a martian rock known as "Bounce" before moving toward Endurance Crater. (LATEST)

"Mission: SPACE appeals to the explorer in all of us," said Walt Disney World President Al Weiss. "NASA"s triumphant Mars missions embody that spirit of exploration. We are pleased and honored to have Administrator O"Keefe"s comments taking their place at Mission: SPACE alongside those of others who dared to dream," he said.

Opportunity was the second of the two rovers launched in 2003 to land on Mars and begin traversing the Red Planet in search of signs of ancient water. The rover explored the Martian terrain for almost 15 years, far outlasting her planned 90-day mission.

After landing on Mars in 2004, Opportunity made a number of discoveries about the Red Planet including dramatic evidence that long ago at least one area of Mars stayed wet for an extended period and that conditions could have been suitable for sustaining microbial life.

The Opportunity rover stopped communicating with Earth when a severe Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location in June 2018. After more than a thousand commands to restore contact, engineers in the Mission Control at NASA"s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) made their last attempt to revive Opportunity Tuesday, February 13, 2019, to no avail. The solar-powered rover"s final communication was received June 10.

“Although many people, for example, believe the Mars Rover robots are champions of Artificial Intelligence, the robots do not “employ state-of-the-art AI algorithms.” Dey said he learned the distinction while collaborating with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory dedicated to robotic exploration of the solar system. AI algorithms require extensive energy consumption to be computed — something that would quickly put the rover out of action in outer space. “On Mars, while exploring several large craters where sunlight might never reach, the rover has to commute and communicate in an optimized fashion with the least amount of external power source,” he said. “And having the state-of-the-art AI algorithm on such a robot would only drain the power source quicker.” But that doesn’t mean the rover isn’t smart in its own way. “Every ounce of the robot is optimized to perform the best at minimal cost,” he said. “So, next time, if you hear about Mars rover then be aware that it is the hard work and dedication of several intelligent researchers and engineers who had made that machine intelligent enough to do its job.”

The rover is a vehicle with many components working in tandem. It has parts similar to what living creatures would require to stay alive. The components of a Mars Rover include:

This is the computer module of the rover. Another name for the brain is the Rover Compute Element. To forestall or prevent mission failure, there are always two Rover Compute Elements within the rover’s body.

These rover’s ears come in the form of two microphones that enable scientists to listen to the sounds of Mars. There are two types of microphones on the Rover: SuperCam and EDL Microphones. The EDL microphone, also known as Enter, Descent, and Landing Microphone, helps record the sounds of landing.

Whenever I give public talks and mention the remarkable longevity of the Mars Exploration Rovers, people always ask, “How long do you think they will last?”

Things break for unpredictable reasons, and there’s simply no way to know when that will happen, even for those of us working on the mission. But now that the day has finally come and 15 years into its 90-day mission Opportunity has officially been declared dead, I realize that my glib response does a disservice to the rovers because they were so much more than toasters.

Spirit and Opportunity were uniquely charismatic. It is almost impossible not to anthropomorphize them: They are roughly the size of a human, with a “head” (the remote sensing mast), “eyes” (cameras), an arm, and a “hand” (contact instruments). They moved according to commands that were invisible to most people, even many of us on the mission, making it seem like they were exploring the surface of Mars on their own.

Not only were they the charismatic stars of a dramatic mission, they also shared all of their pictures with the world immediately. Everyone with an Internet connection could follow along, looking at postcards from Mars the same way you might see pictures from a friend’s vacation on social media.

Of course, social media barely existed in early 2004 when Spirit and Opportunity landed (Facebook started during their 90-day primary mission), but that didn’t stop people. Even in those early days, people loved the rovers and assigned them personalities. Someone made Myspace pages for each rover as if they were teenage girls: Opportunity was all dark and goth, whereas Spirit was pink sparkles and rainbows. The rovers inspired fan art, tribute songs, and even tattoos.

Online communities of space exploration enthusiasts took the daily photos from Mars and ran with them, producing beautiful panoramas and detailed maps and speculating about the rovers’ activities and discoveries along every step of the process.

As a scientist, a part of me tries to stay impartial and removed. We had the data. We knew Opportunity was showing its age; we knew the odds of recovery were slim after major storms covered the rover in dust last June.

But this was not like orbiter missions, which tend to end when they run out of fuel and are deliberately crashed. For those missions, you know when the mission will end down to the second. You know when to grieve.

Now that the mission is over, the absence of Spirit and Opportunity is tangible. It is hard to understand that there will never be another new picture from the two rovers. It is hard to accept that we won’t receive any new data from them to help solve our many unanswered questions. Our window on those parts of Mars has closed. Most of all, it is hard to comprehend that something that was so central to so many of our lives is gone and it is never coming back.

Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars while I was in college, around the time that I officially decided to major in astronomy and physics so that I could pursue my interest in space. After my first summer internship in astronomy, I vividly remember going to a conference in early 2005 and listening with rapt attention to a keynote lecture by Steve Squyres, the leader of the mission.

As part of the rover team, I made professional connections that led to a graduate fellowship, involvement with the Curiosity rover mission that launched just as I was finishing my degree, and a postdoctoral position at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center that eventually turned into a permanent position.

Spirit and Opportunity have been exploring Mars for the entirety of my career in planetary science. They were a constant presence, a source of pride, a guiding influence that set the trajectory of my career.

The sadness I feel at the end of this mission is less like that of a funeral and more like that of a graduation or upon closing the door to the house you grew up in for the last time. It is the bittersweet feeling of growing up, of moving on, and the loss of all that must be left behind. It is the reminder that time marches inexorably onward, that all things must end, and that you can never go back.

A chapter in all of our lives has ended, but with the pain of loss comes pride, knowing that we were lucky enough to play even a small role in such a great mission. Spirit and Opportunity revolutionized the exploration of Mars. Scientifically, they found abundant evidence of past liquid water on the surface. They showed that our detection of minerals from orbit can be verified on the ground but also that treasure troves of fascinating minerals could be waiting just beneath the surface, hidden from our orbital view.

They also revolutionized Mars exploration in a different way. By sharing their images with the world immediately and by lasting far longer than anyone hoped, Spirit and Opportunity made it seem normal to constantly be exploring Mars, constantly seeing things nobody had ever seen before. They paved the way for the Curiosity rover and its successor, the Mars 2020 rover, which will maintain a continuous active presence on Mars for many years to come. Spirit and Opportunity also inspired an entire generation of planetary scientists to enter the field. Many of us who started our careers as Spirit and Opportunity were landing are now leading current and upcoming missions to Mars and across the solar system.

And, of course, Spirit and Opportunity, those two plucky rovers, captured the hearts and minds of the public. They made science and exploration compelling and showed the enormous return on investment that is possible when our tax dollars are spent well. In a world where current events have taken a darker turn, the rovers have been an enduring reminder that we humans can achieve amazing things when we work together. Spirit and Opportunity reminded us that we are part of a larger universe and that we can understand it if we try.

This illustration shows NASA"s Mars Opportunity Rover, the second of the two Mars Exploration Rovers to land on the Red Planet in 2004 to search for signs of past life. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mars, after all, is the planet that most closely resembles Earth -- that is, if Earth had an average temperature of minus 81 degrees F (minus 63 degrees C) and was ostensibly lifeless [source: Mars Exploration]. Still, its geologic patterns resemble a variety of places we"re familiar with on Earth, from the ancient, flood-scarred and eroded lands of Washington state to the deserts of Death Valley and permafrost of Antarctica.

Of course, that doesn"t mean that a manned mission to Mars is akin to a vacation to California. Rovers have allowed space programs to not just explore the Martian surface but also suss out some of the issues that would arise should we one day send women or men to the planet.

Dispatching a rover isn"t as easy as just sending a kiddie-car with a walkie-talkie nailed to the roof. We"ll be exploring both the technology and instruments used on the Mars Exploration Rovers, while also looking at how they communicate with Earth. And the technology doesn"t disappoint; the rover Curiosity, launched in 2011, has instruments on it that truly belong in a science fiction movie. (Hint: lasers.)

So far, there have been more than 40 attempts to make contact with Mars. The first five missions took place from 1960 to 1962, by the former USSR. All the missions were flybys of the planet, meaning that vessels were launched into Mars" orbit to send back images. Those missions were all failures; either the spacecraft didn"t make it to the planet or the spacecraft broke apart during the trip. The first successful mission was the 1964 trip by the Mariner 4, a United States craft that returned 21 images of the planet.

From then on, the United States, the former USSR, Japan and the European Space Agency have all launched missions to Mars. In the following pages, we"ll explore not just the rovers themselves but also some of the discoveries they made. Let"s roll to the next page to see why, exactly, we"re sending rovers in the first place.

LOS ANGELES, Nov 22 (Reuters) - When "Good Night Oppy", which follows NASA rovers Opportunity and Spirit before and after they land on Mars, launched at a film festival in September, the documentary had an unexpected effect on audiences: they cried.

The film, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado in September, looks at the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, which NASA launched in 2003.

Both rovers, which were solar powered, were expected to only live for 90 Martian solar days (SOLs) but Opportunity (or Oppy) lasted over 14 years until it transmitted its last message on June 10, 2018.

White wanted to make the film after Opportunity"s last message "My battery is low and it"s getting dark" went viral.An engineer looks at Mars rover Opportunity at NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in Pasadena, California, U.S. in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters on November 21, 2022. Amazon Studios/ Handout via REUTERS

"Once we met the human being characters, it was an embarrassment of riches. These are people that are living day to day getting to do the things that we all dreamed about doing as kids ... and it"s not just work to them. It"s their life. It"s their daughter on Mars, as a lot of them see her."

Tense anticipation gave way to immense relief at the words of Swati Mohan, Guidance, Navigation and Controls Operations Lead for the Perseverance mission.

Pure joy poured out of mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the rover’s team jumped out of their chairs and erupted into cheers and applause.

Hello, world. My first look at my forever home. #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/dkM9jE9I6X— NASA"s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 18, 2021

The thousands of people who worked to bring Perseverance to life lived up to the mission’s namesake most when they had to prepare the rover for a July 2020 launch during a pandemic. Then, there was the agonizing wait for her to safely land on the Martian surface.

Perseverance had to land in the most dangerous site on Mars ever attempted. A graphic shows her landing site, wreathed in red – which would have meant certain “death” if she landed on those boulders or cliffs. But in flawless fashion, due to the tireless work of many, she landed in a safe blue dot.

NASA"s Perseverance rover was able to use its new Terrain-Relative Navigation technology to avoid hazards and find a safe place to land in Jezero Crater on Mars.

If you felt shaky watching the tense faces in mission control ahead of landing, just imagine how they felt. Some team members, like deputy project managers Jennifer Trosper and Matt Wallace, have worked on all five of NASA’s rovers. It takes a village – artists, engineers, scientists and even those working on other missions.

She carries technological advancements that could pave the way for a human mission to Mars, such as the MOXIE instrument that will convert carbon dioxide into oxygen.

And her cameras and microphones will provide unprecedented views, as well as the sounds of Mars for the first time. Did we mention there’s also Ingenuity, the first helicopter that will fly on another planet?

The Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on Mars aren’t “Wall-E” – we know that. Yet the idea that robotic explorers are venturing across the surface of another planet on behalf of humanity is still overwhelmingly impressive – even though NASA has been landing rovers on Mars since the Sojourner experiment in 1997.

On Twitter, Perseverance’s hobbies are listed as: “Photography, collecting rocks, off-roading.” Shortly after landing, Perseverance tweeted, “I’m safe on Mars. Perseverance will get you anywhere.”

The Curiosity rover account replied, “Bots before boots. So proud of you, @NASAPersevere, and the work you will do paving the way for future astronauts, and searching Mars for signs of ancient life.”

So proud of you, @NASAPersevere, and the work you will do paving the way for future astronauts, and searching Mars for signs of ancient life. https://t.co/S8qalncBY3 #CountdownToMars https://t.co/whojIgktnt— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) February 19, 2021

For one thing, they’re essentially part of us, an extension of Earth now sitting on Mars. Nearly 11 million people submitted their names to hitch a ride with Perseverance on silicon chips.

“There is something special about the first few days, because we have just landed a representative of the planet Earth on a place on Mars that no one has ever been to,” said Mike Watkins, JPL director, after the Thursday landing.

Along the way, I’ve met so many of the people who have dedicated years of their lives this mission. It’s impossible not to feel caught up in their motivations, hopes and passion to explore.

Together, against so many challenges, they have created a technological marvel with a fitting name: Perseverance. Her search for evidence of ancient life on Mars could help answer that fundamental question at the core of humanity: Did life ever exist on another planet?

Throughout her journey, there have been so many moments of wonder. It’s impossible not to feel some inexplicable bond to this 6-wheeled robot. That will only deepen as Perseverance explores Mars.

The tire tracks rovers leave on the surface of Mars could one day have human footsteps next to them. Robots go there first, so that we may follow next. Helicopters like Ingenuity could even act as scouts for both human and robotic explorers.

“Mars is the most Earth-like planet in our solar system,” he said. It’s also more accessible than other planets, and given that Mars was likely habitable billions of years ago, it’s definitely worth exploring for past signs of life.

Perseverance is just the first of a multi-tiered effort made possible by international collaboration and future missions that will return samples collected by Perseverance on Mars to Earth.

“Percy” has already inspired students like eighth grader Alexander Mather, who named her. High school student Vaneeza Rupaninamed the Ingenuity helicopter that was up tucked under the rover during the journey to Mars.

“The future of Mars exploration is just so broad and exciting,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

"Touchdown confirmed," NASA"s Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission control said at 3:55 p.m. ET. "Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking the sands of past life."

The rover is the most technologically advanced robot NASA has ever sent to Mars. The agency aims to spend nearly two years using it to explore the surface. NASA spent about $2.4 billion to build and launch the Perseverance mission, with another $300 million in costs expected for landing and operating the rover on the Mars surface.

Based on its predecessor Curiosity, which reached Mars in August 2012 and is still in operation, the Perseverance rover was built by NASA"s JPL in California. Multiple companies contributed to parts of the spacecraft, such as the

Engineers observe the first driving test for NASA"s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover in a clean room at NASA"s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on Dec. 17, 2019.

Perseverance traveled 293 million miles to reach Mars over the course of more than six months after it launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on July 30.

The rover"s landing featured the typical "seven minutes of terror" that NASA engineers describe in any spacecraft attempt to land on Mars. That"s the time it takes to enter the Martian atmosphere and descend to the surface, and it"s named as such because it takes 11 minutes for any communication to travel from the rover back to Earth — meaning the time delay requires that the spacecraft and rover perform the landing autonomously.

Perseverance landed in the Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide basin in the northern hemisphere of Mars. It"s a place where NASA believes a body of water about the size of Lake Tahoe used to flow. NASA"s science team hopes the ancient river delta may have preserved organic molecules and other potential signs of microbial life, which Perseverance will attempt to detect with its instruments.

It has seven major instruments for a wide variety of purposes: the Mastcam-Z; the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, or MEDA; the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE; the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, or PIXL; the Radar Imager for Mars" Subsurface Experiment, or RIMFAX; the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals, or SHERLOC, and the SuperCam.

The rover also has a sample caching system, which has nine different drill bits and many sample collection tubes to capture pieces of the Mars surface.

"Perseverance is the first rover to bring a sample caching system to Mars that will package promising samples for return to Earth by a future mission," NASA said in a press release. "Rather than pulverizing rock the way Curiosity"s drill does, Perseverance"s drill will cut intact rock cores that are about the size of a piece of chalk and will place them in sample tubes that it will store until the rover reaches an appropriate drop-off location on Mars."

The rover is designed to cover more ground than any other robot sent to Mars before. NASA designed Perseverance to drive an average of 650 feet per Martian day, which is close to the longest drive previously completed in a day at 702 feet by NASA"s Opportunity rover.

If all goes well, Ingenuity"s flight will be the first powered controlled flight on another planet, in what NASA describes as "a Wright Brothers moment" on Mars.

In a decision with no obvious empirical explanation, JPL’s Opportunity Mars rover project manager John Callas was quoted in an August 30th press release saying that the NASA field center would be “forced to conclude” that the dust storm-stricken rover was effectively beyond saving if it fails to come back to life 45 days after 2018’s massive dust storm can be said to have officially ended.

“If we do not hear back [from Opportunity] after 45 days, the team will be forced to conclude that the Sun-blocking dust and the Martiancoldhave conspired to cause some type of fault from which the rover will more than likely not recover. At that point, our active phase of reaching out to Opportunity will be at an end. However, in the unlikely chance that there is a large amount of dust sitting on the solar arrays thatisblocking the Sun’s energy, we will continue passive listening efforts for several months.” –John Calwell, JPL

Scott Maxwell, a former JPL engineer who led drive planning for rovers Spirit and Opportunity, solidly explained the differences between active and passive recovery attempts:

Because it"s a FAQ … "active listening" has two parts: (1) forcing Opportunity"s radio, if she"s listening, to a particular frequency (because it can drift), and (2) a command to talk to us. Pretty much guaranteed to work if she"s awake with her radio on. https://t.co/iaHbHXFKqm

The JPL press release offers exactly zero explanation for the “45-day” deadline, starting the moment that dust clears from Martian skies near Opportunity to a certain degree, likely to happen within the next few weeks. Nor does it explain why “active” recovery attempts would stop at that point, despite the fact that the PR happens to directly acknowledge the fact that the best time to attempt to actively restore contact Opportunity might be after Mars’ windy season is given a chance to blow accumulated dust off of the rover’s solar arrays.

In fact, while all points Callas/the press release makes may theoretically be valid, the experiences of the actual engineers that have been operating Opportunity and MER sister rover Spirit for nearly two decades suggest that his explanations are utterly shallow and fail even the most cursory comparison with real data.

Thanks largely to a number of comments collected by The Atlantic from past, present, and anonymous employees involved with Opportunity, it would seem that there is no truly empirical way to properly estimate the amount of dust that may or may not be on the rover’s solar arrays, no rational engineering-side explanation for the 45-day ultimatum, no clear excuse for how incredibly short that time-frame is, and essentially zero communication between whoever this decision originates from and the engineers tasked with operating and restoring communications with the forlorn, 15-year old rover.

Most tellingly, this exact impromptu dust-storm-triggered hibernation already occurred several times in the past, and even resulted in the demise of Opportunity’s sister rover Spirit in 2010. The Atlantic notes that when a dust storm forced that rover into hibernation in 2010, JPL mission engineers spent a full ten months actively attempting to resuscitate Spirit, followed by another five months of passive listening before the rescue effort was called off.

Given that Opportunity’s engineers appear to believe that there is every reason to expect that the rover can, has, and should survive 2018’s exceptional Martian dust storm, the only plausible explanation for the arbitrary countdown and potentially premature silencing of one of just two active rovers on Mars is purely political and financial. While it requires VERY little money to operate scientific spacecraft when compared with manufacturing and launch costs, the several millions of dollars needed to fund operations engineers and technicians (roughly $15 million per year for Opportunity) could technically be funneled elsewhere or the employees in question could be redirected to newer programs.

For example, the ~$200 million spent operating the rover from 2004 to 2018 could instead fund considerably less than 20% of the original cost of building and launching both Opportunity and Spirit. This is to say that that cutting operation of functioning spacecraft to save money can be quite fairly compared with throwing an iPhone in the trash because the charging cable ripped because $10 could instead be put towards buying a new phone months or years down the line.

Ultimately, all we can do is hope that Opportunity manages to successfully wake up over the course of the next two or three months. If the rover is unable to do so, chances are sadly high that it will be lost forever once active communications restoration efforts come to an end. With an extraordinarily productive 15 years of exploration nearly under its belt, Opportunity – originally designed with an expected lifespan of ~90 days – would leave behind a legacy that would fail to disappoint even the most ardent cynic. Still, if life may yet remain in the rover, every effort ought to be made to keep the intrepid craft alive.

In the early 2000s, Prototype & Short-Run Services, Inc. was privileged to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Our technical innovation and extreme precision fabrication capabilities were called upon by Boeing to provide parts and components for nothing less than NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover. On July 27, 2014, after an almost unbelievable ten years traversing the surface of Mars, Opportunity broke the off-Earth driving distance record that had been established by Russia’s Lunokhod 2 Moon rover in 1973.

Originally sent to the Red Planet in January 2004 on a four-month exploratory mission, Opportunity continues to astound engineers and scientists, sending back valuable information with no end to its exploration in sight.

We at Prototype & Short-Run Services, Inc. are honored to be a part of the Opportunity team and what is perhaps mankind’s ultimate engineering challenge: the exploration of space.

on the surface of Mars, as well as of their equipment and habitat. Despite this phenomenon, there has been no report of electrostatic damage to delicate electronics on any of the surface systems. Furthermore, neither the Viking missions nor the Mars Pathfinder mission experienced any problems due to electrostatic charging.

While it would be useful to learn more about the electrical activity in Martian and terrestrial dust storms and vortices, the committee concludes that such increased knowledge is not essential for planning the first human mission to Mars.

Probably of greater significance is the charging of such objects even in the absence of airborne dust, due to the motion of boots and wheels relative to the surface material and differential motion of different parts of equipment and material. A glove brushing dust from a space suit may cause more dust to cling to both.

The electrical discharge paths between objects at different electric potentials may be through a good con-ductor, resulting in fast charge neutralization, or through the atmosphere or another poorly conducting material, resulting in a much slower charge dissipa-tion. Objects on moist ground on Earth are said to be grounded since the conducting ground has an almost unlimited capacity to accept either positive or negative charge without changing its electric charge potential from what is essentially zero. Such natural discharge or prevention of charging is not expected to occur on Mars, because there is no near-surface liquid water.

The lack of a local electrical ground on Mars may be so electrically isolating that astronauts operating on the Martian surface would build up large potential differences relative to the equipment they will be using or the habitat in which they will live. For example, an astronaut on an EVA may experience an arc between the space suit and equipment or habitat. Such a discharge, if not properly isolated, could damage sensitive, unprotected electronic components or the space suit. In particular, the committee is concerned with the level of charging that might occur as a result of the high-velocity movement that is likely to take place when using a human transport rover.

The hazards from electrostatic discharge on Mars can range from a simple spark, equivalent to feeling a sting here on Earth after walking on certain types of carpet and reaching for a doorknob, to potentially more potent bursts between astronauts and large equipment or structures on Mars. The principal risk, as the committee sees it, is how these discharges could affect the electronic equipment that is critical for human survival on the planet. Here on Earth, the charge generated from walking across a carpet is usually more than enough to disable and potentially destroy certain electronic components.

The dry conditions and uncertainty about conduc-tivity, charging, and discharging rates in the Mars environment create uncertainties about electrostatic effects on human operations in the Mars environment. However, even given the potential hazards, the committee believes that the risk to humans from electrostatic charging on the surface of Mars can be managed through standard design practice and operational procedures. NASA should design accordingly and assume that no effective local ground is available on Mars.

In one case, the physics of the Martian environment may actually help reduce the risk of electrical discharge to humans or systems. So-called Paschen electrical discharge is likely to mitigate the hazard of differential voltage buildup on humans and systems due to the atmospheric composition and pressure on Mars. Owing primarily to its low pressure, the atmosphere ionizes more easily, which dissipates electrical charges at a lower voltage, minimizing the charge buildup. This means that lower overall electric charge should be present when humans and equipment are working on the surface. For a specific case of parallel plates separated by half a centimeter, on Earth the breakdown voltage is approximately 7,000 volts, as opposed to slightly over 400 volts on Mars.

The committee believes that no further in situ measurements are required to characterize the electrostatic properties of the Martian environment, including those properties associated with dust devils, for an initial human mission to Mars. NASA"s experience with the Viking and Pathfinder missions supports this conclusion. It should be noted that if or when highly energetic