mars opportunity mission parts manufacturer

If you want to see science fiction at work, visit a modern machine shop, where 3D printers create materials in just about any shape you can imagine. NASA is exploring the technique – known as additive manufacturing when used by specialized engineers – to build rocket engines as well as potential outposts on the Moon and Mars. Nearer in the future is a different milestone: NASA"s Perseverance rover, which lands on the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021, carries 11 metal parts made with 3D printing.

Curiosity, Perseverance"s predecessor, was the first mission to take 3D printing to the Red Planet. It landed in 2012 with a 3D-printed ceramic part inside the rover"s ovenlike Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. NASA has since continued to test 3D printing for use in spacecraft to make sure the reliability of the parts is well understood.

As "secondary structures," Perseverance"s printed parts wouldn"t jeopardize the mission if they didn"t work as planned, but as Pate said, "Flying these parts to Mars is a huge milestone that opens the door a little more for additive manufacturing in the space industry."

Of the 11 printed parts going to Mars, five are in Perseverance"s PIXL instrument. Short for the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, the lunchbox-size device will help the rover seek out signs of fossilized microbial life by shooting X-ray beams at rock surfaces to analyze them.

PIXL shares space with other tools in the 88-pound (40-kilogram) rotating turret at the end of the rover"s 7-foot-long (2-meter-long) robotic arm. To make the instrument as light as possible, the JPL team designed PIXL"s two-piece titanium shell, a mounting frame, and two support struts that secure the shell to the end of the arm to be hollow and extremely thin. In fact, the parts, which were 3D printed by a vendor called Carpenter Additive, have three or four times less mass than if they"d been produced conventionally.

Perseverance"s six other 3D-printed parts can be found in an instrument called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE. This device will test technology that, in the future, could produce industrial quantities of oxygen to create rocket propellant on Mars, helping astronauts launch back to Earth.

To create oxygen, MOXIE heats Martian air up to nearly 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit (800 degrees Celsius). Within the device are six heat exchangers – palm-size nickel-alloy plates that protect key parts of the instrument from the effects of high temperatures.

X-ray Image of 3D-Printed MOXIE Part:This X-ray image shows the interior of a 3D-printed heat exchanger in Perseverance"s MOXIE instrument. X-ray images like these are used to check for defects within parts.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.Full image and caption ›

While a conventionally machined heat exchanger would need to be made out of two parts and welded together, MOXIE"s were each 3D-printed as a single piece at nearby Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA.

"These kinds of nickel parts are called superalloys because they maintain their strength even at very high temperatures," said Samad Firdosy, a material engineer at JPL who helped develop the heat exchangers. "Superalloys are typically found in jet engines or power-generating turbines. They"re really good at resisting corrosion, even while really hot."

"I really love microstructures," Firdosy said. "For me to see that kind of detail as material is printed, and how it evolves to make this functional part that"s flying to Mars – that"s very cool."

A key objective of Perseverance"s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet"s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with ESA (the European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA"s Artemis lunar exploration plans.

CHICAGO (WLS) --NASA"s Perseverance rover has landed on Mars, and will now search for signs of ancient life on the red planet with the help of parts made in Roscoe, Ill.

This latest, boldest mission to Mars seeks to unlock the secrets of the universe. Perseverance is now in the Jezero crater, where scientists believe water once flowed more than 3 billion years ago.

To accomplish its missions, NASA relies on the support of hundreds of contractors and suppliers. Here"s a look at some of the companies that contributed to the Mars Science Laboratory and the future success of Curiosity’s mission on the Red Planet.

SUMTER, S.C. — On July 30, 2020, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched its Mars 2020 Mission featuring rover named Perseverance. The rover"s mission is to seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for analysis and possible return to Earth.

On Feb. 18, 2021, Perseverance touched down in the Jezero Crater on Mars, along with the Mars Helicopter Ingenuity. Together, the research machines have been gathering samples and data from the Red Planet for an Earthbound team of scientists.

What may not be widely known is that specialized ball bearings -- crucial parts used in the assembly of Perseverance -- were manufactured in Sumter, South Carolina, at the recently expanded SFK (formerly Kaydon) site. The components are part of Perseverance"s main robotic arm, sample collecting turret, tool bit carousel and sample handling assembly during a months-long trip through space, and its function as intended on the Mars surface.

“The bearings we designed and built to help the rover perform its core science activities were based on several models of Kaydon thin-section ball bearings customized by our engineers to minimize weight and save space, while retaining maximum functionality and reliability for a mission where repair or replacement is simply not an option,” said Isidoro Mazzitelli, Director of Product Development and Engineering Americas. Space applications must be a small fraction of the weight of standard bearing assemblies.

Employees at Windings, Inc., manufacturer of stators and electric motor components, watched the Mars rover landing with special interest this week. They made some of the parts on the Perseverance rover that will be exploring the surface of Mars.

NEW ULM — Many different types of parts and products are manufactured in New Ulm and these parts are sent all over the world. In some cases, they are sent out of this world.

Windings have manufactured several items for NASA over the years. The parts built for Perseverance were not the first from Windings to end up in space.

The Windings webpage lists some of the space missions that have including components and assemblies produced by the company. The mission list includes space vehicles, satellites, Parker Solar Probe, Curiosity Mars Rover and Perseverance Rover.

The exact parts Windings manufactured for the Perseverance Rover are a secret, but Windings Director of Marketing David Hansen was able to share that Windings provided components for the rover’s robotic arm and coring turret drill.

The Perseverance Rover’s main task on Mars will be to seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith for a possible return to Earth.

Perseverance was launched July 30, 2020 and after six months landed at Jezero Crater of Mars. Hitching a ride on the Perseverance rover is a helicopter named Ingenuity. This will be the first aircraft to attempt a powered, controlled flight on another planet.

ELMA, N.Y. — Millions of people all over the world watched Thursday as NASA made history by landing the Perseverance Rover on the surface of Mars. Countless scientists and engineers worked for years to make this mission possible, and that includes hundreds of workers here in Western New York.

Moog, Inc. which has its headquarters in Elma, had a large part in the early success of the mission. Engineers and workers at Moog helped build the rocket boosters that steered Perseverance through space and helped it land safely on the red planet. Now, the company"s technology will keep the drill clean as it collects Martian soil samples to analyze.

Of course, these missions aren"t without their occasional hiccups. After the landing, NASA"s Mission Control jokingly called the landing process "seven minutes of terror" as they feared a crash, and Moog engineers were nervous too. "We were definitely a part of that seven minutes. I was sitting here watching myself. I can"t imagine how the folks over at JPL - were much closer to it felt," says Steve McDonald a Propulsion Engineer Manager at Moog. "But I was feeling nervous myself just kind of anxiously waiting to see what happened. But yeah, our throttle valves helped lower the rover right to the surface just as they did back in Mars MSL for the Curiosity Rover several years ago."

The Perseverance Rover is NASA"s fifth rover to be sent to Mars, following the most recent Curiosity rover which landed on the planet in 2012. Perseverance is approximately the size of an SUV and weighs two tons.

While they"re used to seeing their work take flight to outer space, Moog employees back here in Western New York say watching this one was especially rewarding. "Those NASA exploration missions, they have a lot of high visibility, they generate a lot of buzz, there"s a lot of interest and it really gets people excited," says McDonald. "It"s nice because when you"re working in the space industry and you"re working on so much hardware like we do, you tend to take it for granted and it"s events like these that really help remind us how special it really is."

In a statement on the company"s website, Steve Witkowski, Market Manager for Space Electronics said “From the machinists building the individual hardware to our technicians integrating each component into the larger system, this is truly a mission inside a mission. It’s incredible to think of your work being a critical component in exploring another planet.”

OREM, Utah – As the Perseverance rover touched down on the surface of Mars Thursday, a group of scientists, engineers and executives huddled in a conference room and watched NASA’s live coverage anxiously.

The employees of MOXTEK Inc. had precious cargo on board — parts expected to play an important role in the search for signs of ancient life on the red planet.

“That’s how they’ll be able to distinguish normal rock from possibly organic, fossil rock,” Parker said. “We’re basically shining a light on whether or not there was life on Mars.”

“What I think is unique about our X-ray products and why NASA and JPL require it is because they’re super durable, super light and they take low power,” Ogden explained. “You can run these on a battery anywhere in the world or, of course, on Mars.”

The company’s components, Ogden said, are currently slated to be part of three future space missions, including one aimed at studying the weather on the sun.

It takes years of preparation to create the rover, which is made up of many moving parts, including the gears in the arm, which were made by Forest City Gear.

“I think the first one… there were three vehicles, Spirit and Opportunity, and then the next one was Curiosity. This later one is Perseverance,” Young said.

The small parts are a big deal for Forest City Gear: it takes up to eight months to make. NASA needs all the parts finalized one year prior to the big launch.

“It’s fun for folks to learn that their gears are going well beyond the Earth. What’s Mars? Thirty-seven million miles, I think. That’s beyond the imagination of most people,” said Young.

CHICAGO (WLS)—NASA"s Perseverance rover has landed on Mars, and will now search for signs of ancient life on the red planet with the help of parts made in Roscoe, Ill.

This latest, boldest mission to Mars seeks to unlock the secrets of the universe. Perseverance is now in the Jezero crater, where scientists believe water once flowed more than 3 billion years ago.

NASA"s Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission was a robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rovers to explore the Martian surface and geology; both landed on Mars at separate locations in January 2004. Both rovers far outlived their planned missions of 90 Martian solar days: MER-A Spirit was active until March 22, 2010,Opportunity was active until June 10, 2018.

The mission"s scientific objective was to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. The mission is part of NASA"s Mars Exploration Program, which includes three previous successful landers: the two Viking program landers in 1976 and Mars Pathfinder probe in 1997.

In July 2007, during the fourth mission extension, Martian dust storms blocked sunlight to the rovers and threatened the ability of the craft to gather energy through their solar panels, causing engineers to fear that one or both of them might be permanently disabled. However, the dust storms lifted, allowing them to resume operations.

On May 1, 2009, during its fifth mission extension, Spirit became stuck in soft soil.Spirit was being retasked as a stationary science platform. This mode would enable Spirit to assist scientists in ways that a mobile platform could not, such as detecting "wobbles" in the planet"s rotation that would indicate a liquid core.Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) lost contact with Spirit after last hearing from the rover on March 22, 2010, and continued attempts to regain communications lasted until May 25, 2011, bringing the elapsed mission time to 6 years 2 months 19 days, or over 25 times the original planned mission duration.

In recognition of the vast amount of scientific information amassed by both rovers, two asteroids have been named in their honor: 37452 Spirit and 39382 Opportunity. The mission is managed for NASA by the JPL, which designed, built, and is operating the rovers.

On January 24, 2014, NASA reported that then-current studies by the remaining rover, Opportunity, as well as by the newer Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity would now be searching for evidence of ancient life, including a biosphere based on autotrophic, chemotrophic and/or chemolithoautotrophic microorganisms, as well as ancient water, including fluvio-lacustrine environments (plains related to ancient rivers or lakes) that may have been habitable.habitability, taphonomy (related to fossils), and organic carbon on the planet Mars was then switched to a primary NASA objective.

Perform calibration and validation of surface observations made by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) instruments. This will help determine the accuracy and effectiveness of various instruments that survey Martian geology from orbit.

The MER-A and MER-B probes were launched on June 10, 2003 and July 7, 2003, respectively. Though both probes launched on Boeing Delta II 7925-9.5 rockets from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 17 (CCAFS SLC-17), MER-B was on the heavy version of that launch vehicle, needing the extra energy for Trans-Mars injection. The launch vehicles were integrated onto pads right next to each other,Launch Services Program managed the launch of both spacecraft.

On January 21, 2004, the Deep Space Network lost contact with Spirit, for reasons originally thought to be related to a flare shower over Australia. The rover transmitted a message with no data, but later that day missed another communications session with the Mars Global Surveyor. The next day, JPL received a beep from the rover, indicating that it was in fault mode. On January 23, the flight team succeeded in making the rover send. The fault was believed to have been caused by an error in the rover"s flash memory subsystem. The rover did not perform any scientific activities for ten days, while engineers updated its software and ran tests. The problem was corrected by reformatting Spirit"s flash memory and using a software patch to avoid memory overload; Opportunity was also upgraded with the patch as a precaution. Spirit returned to full scientific operations by February 5.

On March 23, 2004, a news conference was held announcing "major discoveries" of evidence of past liquid water on the Martian surface. A delegation of scientists showed pictures and data revealing a stratified pattern and cross bedding in the rocks of the outcrop inside a crater in Meridiani Planum, landing site of MER-B, Opportunity. This suggested that water once flowed in the region. The irregular distribution of chlorine and bromine also suggests that the place was once the shoreline of a salty sea, now evaporated.

On April 8, 2004, NASA announced that it was extending the mission life of the rovers from three to eight months. It immediately provided additional funding of US$15 million through September, and $2.8 million per month for continuing operations. Later that month, Opportunity arrived at Endurance crater, taking about five days to drive the 200 meters. NASA announced on September 22 that it was extending the mission life of the rovers for another six months. Opportunity was to leave Endurance crater, visit its discarded heat shield, and proceed to Victoria crater. Spirit was to attempt to climb to the top of the Columbia Hills.

With the two rovers still functioning well, NASA later announced another 18-month extension of the mission to September 2006. Opportunity was to visit the "Etched Terrain" and Spirit was to climb a rocky slope toward the top of Husband Hill. On August 21, 2005, Spirit reached the summit of Husband Hill after 581 sols and a journey of 4.81 kilometers (2.99 mi).

Spirit celebrated its one Martian year anniversary (669 sols or 687 Earth days) on November 20, 2005. Opportunity celebrated its anniversary on December 12, 2005. At the beginning of the mission, it was expected that the rovers would not survive much longer than 90 Martian days. The Columbia Hills were "just a dream", according to rover driver Chris Leger. Spirit explored the semicircular rock formation known as Home Plate. It is a layered rock outcrop that puzzles and excites scientists.

Spirit"s front right wheel ceased working on March 13, 2006, while the rover was moving itself to McCool Hill. Its drivers attempted to drag the dead wheel behind Spirit, but this only worked until reaching an impassable sandy area on the lower slopes. Drivers directed Spirit to a smaller sloped feature, dubbed "Low Ridge Haven", where it spent the long Martian winter, waiting for spring and increased solar power levels suitable for driving. That September, Opportunity reached the rim of Victoria crater, and Spaceflight Now reported that NASA had extended mission for the two rovers through September 2007.Opportunity became the first spacecraft to traverse ten kilometers (6.2 miles) on the surface of Mars.

Opportunity was poised to enter Victoria Crater from its perch on the rim of Duck Bay on June 28, 2007,Spirit and Opportunity resumed driving after hunkering down during raging dust storms that limited solar power to a level that nearly caused the permanent failure of both rovers.

On August 26, 2008, Opportunity began its three-day climb out of Victoria crater amidst concerns that power spikes, similar to those seen on Spirit before the failure of its right-front wheel, might prevent it from ever being able to leave the crater if a wheel failed. Project scientist Bruce Banerdt also said, "We"ve done everything we entered Victoria Crater to do and more." Opportunity will return to the plains in order to characterize Meridiani Planum"s vast diversity of rocks—some of which may have been blasted out of craters such as Victoria. The rover had been exploring Victoria Crater since September 11, 2007.

After driving about 3.2 kilometers (2.0 mi) since it left Victoria crater, Opportunity first saw the rim of Endeavour crater on March 7, 2009.Spirit was dug in deep into the Martian sand, much as Opportunity was at Purgatory Dune in 2005.

On January 3 and 24, 2010, Spirit and Opportunity respectively marked six years on Mars.Spirit will be used as a stationary research platform after several months of unsuccessful attempts to free the rover from soft sand.

NASA announced on March 24, 2010, that Opportunity, which has an estimated remaining drive distance of 12 km to Endeavour Crater, has traveled over 20 km since the start of its mission.Spirit may have gone into hibernation for the Martian winter and might not wake up again for months.

On September 8, 2010, it was announced that Opportunity had reached the halfway point of the 19-kilometer journey between Victoria crater and Endeavour crater.

On May 22, 2011, NASA announced that it would cease attempts to contact Spirit, which had been stuck in a sand trap for two years. The last successful communication with the rover was on March 22, 2010. The final transmission to the rover was on May 25, 2011.

On May 16, 2013, NASA announced that Opportunity had driven further than any other NASA vehicle on a world other than Earth.Opportunity"s total odometry went over 35.744 km (22.210 mi), the rover surpassed the total distance driven by the Apollo 17 Lunar Roving Vehicle.

On July 28, 2014, NASA announced that Opportunity had driven further than any other vehicle on a world other than Earth.Opportunity covered over 40 km (25 mi), surpassing the total distance of 39 km (24 mi) driven by the Lunokhod 2 lunar rover, the previous record-holder.

On March 23, 2015, NASA announced that Opportunity had driven the full 42.2 km (26.2 mi) distance of a marathon, with a finish time of roughly 11 years, 2 months.

In June 2018, Opportunity was caught in a global-scale dust storm and the rover"s solar panels were not able to generate enough power, with the last contact on June 10, 2018. NASA resumed sending commands after the dust storm subsided but the rover remained silent, possibly due to a catastrophic failure or a layer of dust covering its solar panels.

A press conference was held on February 13, 2019, that after numerous attempts to obtain contact with Opportunity with no response since June 2018, NASA declared

The cruise stage is the component of the spacecraft that is used for travel from Earth to Mars. It is very similar to the Mars Pathfinder in design and is approximately 2.65 meters (8.7 feet) in diameter and 1.6 m (5.2 ft) tall, including the entry vehicle (see below).

The primary structure is aluminium with an outer ring of ribs covered by the solar panels, which are about 2.65 m (8.7 ft) in diameter. Divided into five sections, the solar arrays can provide up to 600 watts of power near Earth and 300 W at Mars.

To ensure the spacecraft arrived at Mars in the right place for its landing, two light-weight, aluminium-lined tanks carried about 31 kg (about 68 lb) of hydrazine propellant. Along with cruise guidance and control systems, the propellant allowed navigators to keep the spacecraft on course. Burns and pulse firings of the propellant allowed three types of maneuvers:

Navigators sent commands through two antennas on the cruise stage: a cruise low-gain antenna mounted inside the inner ring, and a cruise medium-gain antenna in the outer ring. The low-gain antenna was used close to Earth. It is omni-directional, so the transmission power that reached Earth fell faster with increasing distance. As the craft moved closer to Mars, the Sun and Earth moved closer in the sky as viewed from the craft, so less energy reached Earth. The spacecraft then switched to the medium-gain antenna, which directed the same amount of transmission power into a tighter beam toward Earth.

The aeroshell maintained a protective covering for the lander during the seven-month voyage to Mars. Together with the lander and the rover, it constituted the "entry vehicle". Its main purpose was to protect the lander and the rover inside it from the intense heat of entry into the thin Martian atmosphere. It was based on the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Viking designs.

The aeroshell was made of two main parts: a heat shield and a backshell. The heat shield was flat and brownish, and protected the lander and rover during entry into the Martian atmosphere and acted as the first aerobrake for the spacecraft. The backshell was large, cone-shaped and painted white. It carried the parachute and several components used in later stages of entry, descent, and landing, including:

The ablator itself is a unique blend of cork wood, binder and many tiny silica glass spheres. It was invented for the heat shields flown on the Viking Mars lander missions. A similar technology was used in the first US crewed space missions Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. It was specially formulated to react chemically with the Martian atmosphere during entry and carry heat away, leaving a hot wake of gas behind the vehicle. The vehicle slowed from 19,000 to 1,600 km/h (5,300 to 440 m/s) in about a minute, producing about 60 m/s2 (6 acceleration on the lander and rover.

The 2003 parachute design was part of a long-term Mars parachute technology development effort and is based on the designs and experience of the Viking and Pathfinder missions. The parachute for this mission is 40% larger than Pathfinder"s because the largest load for the Mars Exploration Rover is 80 to 85 kilonewtons (kN) or 80 to 85 kN (18,000 to 19,000 lbf) when the parachute fully inflates. By comparison, Pathfinder"s inflation loads were approximately 35 kN (about 8,000 lbf). The parachute was designed and constructed in South Windsor, Connecticut by Pioneer Aerospace, the company that also designed the parachute for the

Rocket assisted descent (RAD) motors: Because the atmospheric density of Mars is less than 1% of Earth"s, the parachute alone could not slow down the Mars Exploration Rover enough to ensure a safe, low landing speed. The spacecraft descent was assisted by rockets that brought the spacecraft to a dead stop 10–15 m (33–49 ft) above the Martian surface.

Airbags used in the Mars Exploration Rover mission are the same type that Mars Pathfinder used in 1997. They had to be strong enough to cushion the spacecraft if it landed on rocks or rough terrain and allow it to bounce across Mars" surface at highway speeds (about 100 km/h) after landing. The airbags had to be inflated seconds before touchdown and deflated once safely on the ground.

After the lander stopped bouncing and rolling on the ground, it came to rest on the base of the tetrahedron or one of its sides. The sides then opened to make the base horizontal and the rover upright. The sides are connected to the base by hinges, each of which has a motor strong enough to lift the lander. The rover plus lander has a mass of about 533 kilograms (1,175 pounds). The rover alone has a mass of about 185 kg (408 lb). The gravity on Mars is about 38% of Earth"s, so the motor does not need to be as powerful as it would on Earth.

The rover contains accelerometers to detect which way is down (toward the surface of Mars) by measuring the pull of gravity. The rover computer then commanded the correct lander petal to open to place the rover upright. Once the base petal was down and the rover was upright, the other two petals were opened.

The moving of the rover off the lander is called the egress phase of the mission. The rover must avoid having its wheels caught in the airbag material or falling off a sharp incline. To help this, a retraction system on the petals slowly drags the airbags toward the lander before the petals open. Small ramps on the petals fan out to fill spaces between the petals. They cover uneven terrain, rock obstacles, and airbag material, and form a circular area from which the rover can drive off in more directions. They also lower the step that the rover must climb down. They are nicknamed "batwings", and are made of Vectran cloth.

For comparison, the Mars Science Laboratory"s power system is composed of a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) produced by Boeing.kilowatt hours per day, compared to the Mars Exploration Rovers, which can generate about 0.6 kilowatt hours per day.

It was thought that by the end of the 90-sol mission, the capability of the solar arrays to generate power would likely be reduced to about 50 watts. This was due to anticipated dust coverage on the solar arrays, and the change in season. Over three Earth years later, however, the rovers" power supplies hovered between 300 watt-hours and 900 watt-hours per day, depending on dust coverage. Cleaning events (dust removal by wind) have occurred more often than NASA expected, keeping the arrays relatively free of dust and extending the life of the mission. During a 2007 global dust storm on Mars, both rovers experienced some of the lowest power of the mission; Opportunity dipped to 128 watt-hours. In November 2008, Spirit had overtaken this low-energy record with a production of 89 watt-hours, due to dust storms in the region of Gusev crater.

The rovers run a VxWorks embedded operating system on a radiation-hardened 20 MHz RAD6000 CPU with 128 MB of DRAM with error detection and correction and 3 MB of EEPROM. Each rover also has 256 MB of flash memory. To survive during the various mission phases, the rover"s vital instruments must stay within a temperature of −40 °C to +40 °C (−40 °F to 104 °F). At night, the rovers are heated by eight radioisotope heater units (RHU), which each continuously generate 1 W of thermal energy from the decay of radioisotopes, along with electrical heaters that operate only when necessary. A sputtered gold film and a layer of silica aerogel are used for insulation.

The rover has an X band low-gain and an X band high-gain antenna for communications to and from the Earth, as well as an ultra high frequency monopole antenna for relay communications. The low-gain antenna is omnidirectional, and transmits data at a low rate to Deep Space Network antennas on Earth. The high-gain antenna is directional and steerable, and can transmit data to Earth at a higher rate. The rovers use the UHF monopole and its CE505 radio to communicate with spacecraft orbiting Mars, the Mars Odyssey and (before its failure) the Mars Global Surveyor (already more than 7.6 terabits of data were transferred using its Mars Relay antenna and Mars Orbiter Camera"s memory buffer of 12 MB).high-powered antennas.

ICER is based on wavelets, and was designed specifically for deep-space applications. It produces progressive compression, both lossless and lossy, and incorporates an error-containment scheme to limit the effects of data loss on the deep-space channel. It outperforms the lossy JPEG image compressor and the lossless Rice compressor used by the Mars Pathfinder mission.

A periscope assembly for the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES), which identifies promising rocks and soils for closer examination, and determines the processes that formed them. The Mini-TES was built by Arizona State University. The periscope assembly features two beryllium fold mirrors, a shroud that closes to minimize dust contamination in the assembly, and stray-light rejection baffles that are strategically placed within the graphite epoxy tubes.

I used to live in an orphanage. It was dark and cold and lonely. At night, I looked up at the sparkly sky and felt better. I dreamed I could fly there. In America, I can make all my dreams come true. Thank you for the "Spirit" and the "Opportunity."

Prior to this, during the development and building of the rovers, they were known as MER-1 Rover 1 (Opportunity) and MER-2 Rover 2 (Spirit). Internally, NASA also uses the mission designations MER-A (Spirit) and MER-B (Opportunity) based on the order of landing on Mars.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory maintains a pair of rovers, the Surface System Test-Beds (SSTB) at its location in Pasadena for testing and modeling of situations on Mars. One test rover, SSTB1, weighing approximately 180 kg (400 lb), is fully instrumented and nearly identical to Spirit and Opportunity. Another test version, SSTB-Lite, is identical in size and drive characteristics but does not include all instruments. It weighs 80 kg (180 lb), much closer to the weight of Spirit and Opportunity in the reduced gravity of Mars. These rovers were used in 2009 for a simulation of the incident in which Spirit became trapped in soft soil.

These rocks can be classified in different ways. The amounts and types of minerals make the rocks primitive basalts—also called picritic basalts. The rocks are similar to ancient terrestrial rocks called basaltic komatiites. Rocks of the plains also resemble the basaltic shergottites, meteorites which came from Mars. One classification system compares the amount of alkali elements to the amount of silica on a graph; in this system, Gusev plains rocks lie near the junction of basalt, picrobasalt, and tephrite. The Irvine-Barager classification calls them basalts.

Towards the middle of the six-year mission (a mission that was supposed to last only 90 days), large amounts of pure silica were found in the soil. The silica could have come from the interaction of soil with acid vapors produced by volcanic activity in the presence of water or from water in a hot spring environment.

After Spirit stopped working scientists studied old data from the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer, or Mini-TES and confirmed the presence of large amounts of carbonate-rich rocks, which means that regions of the planet may have once harbored water. The carbonates were discovered in an outcrop of rocks called "Comanche."

In summary, Spirit found evidence of slight weathering on the plains of Gusev, but no evidence that a lake was there. However, in the Columbia Hills there was clear evidence for a moderate amount of aqueous weathering. The evidence included sulfates and the minerals goethite and carbonates which only form in the presence of water. It is believed that Gusev crater may have held a lake long ago, but it has since been covered by igneous materials. All the dust contains a magnetic component which was identified as magnetite with some titanium. Furthermore, the thin coating of dust that covers everything on Mars is the same in all parts of Mars.

The Opportunity rover landed in a small crater, dubbed "Eagle", on the flat plains of Meridiani. The plains of the landing site were characterized by the presence of a large number of small spherules, spherical concretions that were tagged "blueberries" by the science team, which were found both loose on the surface, and also embedded in the rock. These proved to have a high concentration of the mineral hematite, and showed the signature of being formed in an aqueous environment. The layered bedrock revealed in the crater walls showed signs of being sedimentary in nature, and compositional and microscopic-imagery analysis showed this to be primarily with composition of Jarosite, a ferrous sulfate mineral that is characteristically an evaporite that is the residue from the evaporation of a salty pond or sea.

The mission has provided substantial evidence of past water activity on Mars. In addition to investigating the "water hypothesis", Opportunity has also obtained astronomical observations and atmospheric data.

The extended mission took the rover across the plains to a series of larger craters in the south, with the arrival at the edge of a 25-km diameter crater, Endeavour Crater, eight years after landing. The orbital spectroscopy of this crater rim show the signs of phyllosilicate rocks, indicative of older sedimentary deposits.

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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.

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Perseverance, the centrepiece of NASA’s $2.7 billion Mars 2020 mission, touched down inside the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater on February 18th, 2021. Once it’s fully up and running, the car-sized robot will search for evidence of past microbial life and collect several samples for future return to Earth, among other ambitious tasks.

A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterise the planet’s geology and past climate, paving the way for human exploration of Mars. It will be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith. NASA’s Perseverance rover carries eleven metal additively manufactured parts.

Andre Pate, the group lead for Additive Manufacturing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, commented, “Flying these parts to Mars is a huge milestone that opens the door a little more for Additive Manufacturing in the space industry.” NASA explains that Curiosity, Perseverance’s predecessor, was the first mission to take Additive Manufacturing to Mars when it landed in 2012 with an additively manufactured ceramic part inside the rover’s oven-like Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. NASA has since continued to test AM for use in spacecraft to ensure the parts’ reliability is well understood.

Of the eleven metal additively manufactured parts travelling to Mars, five are within Perseverance’s Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL). This device helps the rover seek out signs of fossilised microbial life by aiming X-ray beams at rock surfaces to analyse them.

To make that instrument as light as possible, the JPL team designed PIXL’s two-piece titanium shell, a mounting frame, and two support struts that secure the shell to the end of the arm to be hollow and extremely thin. The parts, which were additively manufactured by Carpenter Additive, are reported to have three or four times less mass than if they’d been produced conventionally.

In the opening scenes of the new film "Good Night Oppy," the Opportunity rover rolls along through Perseverance Valley on Mars in June 2018, as "Roam" by The B-52s fills the room at mission control.

The peppy tune was the rover"s wake-up song, played at NASA"s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. In the same way NASA has used a song to wake up astronauts each day they spend in space since the 1960s, the Opportunity rover team began their daily shifts with a song that set the mood for "Oppy"s" journey.

The documentary film "Good Night Oppy" follows the Mars Opportunity rover, which turned what NASA expected to be a 90-day mission into 15 years of exploration on the red planet. Credit:Courtesy of Prime Video

Mission team members still thought of her as their lucky rover, though — invincible. After all, Oppy was designed for a 90-day mission, but she had exceeded all expectations and outlived her twin sister, Spirit, by some seven years.

This chapter is just the beginning of the documentary, available to stream on Amazon Prime on November 23. The film traces the journey of the twin rovers and the people who dedicated their lives to them from concept to that last transmission.

Director Ryan White has woven together decades of footage from the NASA vaults with photorealistic effects and animation from Industrial Light & Magic, the famed visual effects company founded by George Lucas, and narration from actor Angela Bassett. The documentary places the viewer on Mars along with the two rovers as they roam on opposite sides of the red planet.

"Even though the spacecraft was robotic, the mission was human," said Doug Ellison, engineering camera team lead for the Curiosity Rover at JPL, who also worked on Opportunity"s mission.

As NASA engineers built and tested the twin rovers in the early 2000s, they quickly realized the robots couldn"t be more different. Spirit was the headstrong drama queen while Opportunity was the overachiever, according to team members. Spirit was stubborn and struggled through the same tests that Opportunity breezed through. Their personalities seemed as human as their design.

The rovers were built to search for past evidence of water on Mars. Both launched in 2003 inside protective shells aboard Delta rockets and landed in 2004 on opposite sides of the red planet. The dual mission"s first 90 days came and went, and the JPL team realized the two rovers were ready for more adventure.

This image is a cropped version of the last 360-degree panorama taken by the Opportunity rover"s panoramic camera from May 13 through June 10, 2018. The view is presented in false color to make some differences between materials easier to see. Credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

Together, Spirit and Opportunity"s findings would rewrite the textbooks with new information about the red planet and its intriguing, watery past — and they both got into all sorts of trouble in between discoveries, like getting stuck in the sand and nearly careening down the sides of steep craters.

The bonds between team members and the rovers quickly deepened, despite the vast distance between Earth and Mars — making it all the more difficult when Spirit"s journey ended in 2011 and Opportunity fell silent in 2018. There was hope for