It’s been eight months since the last signal was received from Opportunity. Yesterday’s announcement marks the end of the successful Mars Exploration Rover Mission that launched a pair of twin rovers in 2003.

When the MER program was first announced in detail, it was thought that each rover would operate for about 90 days, due to dust accumulation on the solar panels. I wrote to the project’s principle investigator, Steve Squyres, to ask why they didn’t include some kind of blower or wiper, given that for the sake of a few hundred grams of hardware they could add years to the missions life. He was kind enough to reply promptly with an explanation that serious consideration was given to ideas like this but that any intermittent power requirements or moving parts would add to the probability of mission failure.

As it happened, the wind cleaned the panels very well indeed, due to some unanticipated electrostatic effect that meant the dust didn’t grip the panels well or something. NASA got 6 years out of Spirit and 14 years out of Opportunity.

Hardly needs saying that Opportunity was the longest lived piece of hardware to ever operate on the surface of any off-Earth body.

The high resolution panoramic images provided by the rovers were very pleasing and informative, but the scientific hardware gave genuinely fresh information: the RAT (rock abrasion tool) would grind fresh surfaces off outcrops so that the Microscopic Imager could take clean images for mineralogical analysis. Some of the dust generated by the RAT was collected by magnets, and this dust was examined by the gamma ray spectrometer. There was also an alpha particle spectrometer. All of this was place on a robotic arm, that could get the instruments as close as necessary to the targets. The autonomous obstacle detection and navigation meant that it could travel much faster than if it relied on micromanagement from Earth (given that two-way time delay).

It was originally hoped that the rovers would traverse around 1 km each. Spirit travelled 7 km and Opportunity travelled 45 km.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_information_from_the_Mars_Exploration_Rover_mission

https://www.space.com/mars-rover-opportunity-declared-dead.html
Mars Rover Opportunity Is Dead After Record-Breaking 15 Years on Red Planet

a good innings, I’m sure all the members would stand and applaud.

I have been a rover, I have tracked alone.
Crossed a hundred byways, never had a home.
Still an’all I’m happy the reason is you see
Once in a while along the way NASA talked to me.

Much better than pretty bloody good, all things considered.

:)

all over red rover

> Opportunity travelled 45 km.

Last time I checked, Opportunity had travelled furthest, Lunakhod second furthest, and Curiosity third furthest of all the rovers.

Mind you, Curiosity has been going over old ground getting nowhere for the past 2 years.

mollwollfumble said:

> Opportunity travelled 45 km.

Last time I checked, Opportunity had travelled furthest, Lunakhod second furthest, and Curiosity third furthest of all the rovers.

Mind you, Curiosity has been going over old ground getting nowhere for the past 2 years.

Curiosity much further down that chart than that.

which is the rover that landed on mars “recently” which had the drill on it ?? Curiosity?

I’m surprised Lego hasn’t done an entire series of various landers, probes, the Mars rovers would look particularly cool especially if they moved

• I’m surprised Lego hasn’t done an entire series of various landers, probes, the Mars rovers would look particularly cool especially if they moved

They’ve got that robot thing that kind of looks like a rover…

Cymek said:

I’m surprised Lego hasn’t done an entire series of various landers, probes, the Mars rovers would look particularly cool especially if they moved

Someone could build another Mars out of lego.

How many legos would you need?

Dropbear said:

which is the rover that landed on mars “recently” which had the drill on it ?? Curiosity?

You might be mixing two up. The InSight Lander on Mars has a drill on it.

China’s Yutu 2 rover landed on the Moon at about the same time. Yutu 2 has ground penetrating radar but no drill.

The next Chinese moon rover may have a drill, as it is designed for sample return.

Dropbear said:

which is the rover that landed on mars “recently” which had the drill on it ?? Curiosity?

It could have drilled poor little Opportunity, yep. Or just run it over.

mollwollfumble said:

Dropbear said:

which is the rover that landed on mars “recently” which had the drill on it ?? Curiosity?

You might be mixing two up. The InSight Lander on Mars has a drill on it.

probably.. thank you.. I havent heard much about the InSight lander since it landed and the initial excitement of it being non-dead

Cymek said:

I’m surprised Lego hasn’t done an entire series of various landers, probes, the Mars rovers would look particularly cool especially if they moved

The Lego Mars rover won a prize not too long ago.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Cymek said:

I’m surprised Lego hasn’t done an entire series of various landers, probes, the Mars rovers would look particularly cool especially if they moved

Someone could build another Mars out of lego.

How many legos would you need?

Not sure but the attention to detail for various lego kits is really good.
I bought my son the Saturn 5, its nearly a metre tall and has all the various stages complete with internals and rockets, its not just one piece and the land and command module

Dropbear said:

mollwollfumble said:

Dropbear said:

which is the rover that landed on mars “recently” which had the drill on it ?? Curiosity?

You might be mixing two up. The InSight Lander on Mars has a drill on it.

probably.. thank you.. I havent heard much about the InSight lander since it landed and the initial excitement of it being non-dead

Curiosity has a drill, yes. It’s been drilling into boulders and analysing the powder.

mollwollfumble said:

Cymek said:

I’m surprised Lego hasn’t done an entire series of various landers, probes, the Mars rovers would look particularly cool especially if they moved

The Lego Mars rover won a prize not too long ago.

Just looked you can get it did not see it on the Lego website before

Cymek said:

mollwollfumble said:

Cymek said:

I’m surprised Lego hasn’t done an entire series of various landers, probes, the Mars rovers would look particularly cool especially if they moved

The Lego Mars rover won a prize not too long ago.

Just looked you can get it did not see it on the Lego website before

See now I look stupid a whole bunch of them exist and I am sure they weren’t on the official Lego website before

They tell me that Curiosity played Happy Birthday to itself on its first birthday on Mars.

NB: Its first Earth birthday.

Rule 303 said:

They tell me that Curiosity played Happy Birthday to itself on its first birthday on Mars.

NB: Its first Earth birthday.

that’s racist

dv said:

Rule 303 said:

They tell me that Curiosity played Happy Birthday to itself on its first birthday on Mars.

NB: Its first Earth birthday.

that’s racist

Could of been.

Rule 303 said:

dv said:

Rule 303 said:

They tell me that Curiosity played Happy Birthday to itself on its first birthday on Mars.

NB: Its first Earth birthday.

that’s racist

Could of been.

Someone was watching?

Why did they have to do it on Valentine’s Day? :-(

Kothos said:

Why did they have to do it on Valentine’s Day? :-(

Isn’t their Valentine’s Day tomorrow?

Tau.Neutrino said:

Kothos said:

Why did they have to do it on Valentine’s Day? :-(

Isn’t their Valentine’s Day tomorrow?

a few minutes away, yes.

Press F to pay respects

Oh yeah – it’s only V. Day for us.

As it were.

Kothos said:

Why did they have to do it on Valentine’s Day? :-(

To remind people that opportunity is fleeting

dv said:

Kothos said:

Why did they have to do it on Valentine’s Day? :-(

To remind people that opportunity is fleeting

who gives a fuck?

roughbarked said:

dv said:

Kothos said:

Why did they have to do it on Valentine’s Day? :-(

To remind people that opportunity is fleeting

who gives a fuck?

Well, me because I did something nice with mt wife today which makes me happy but the official death of Opportunity makes me said. I’m not suggesting you have to give a shit about my feelings but I do.

My batteries are low and it’s getting dark.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Oh yes. I like that one.

Must go back to looking at the Onion some day.

Tau.Neutrino said:

MARS—Journeying thousands of lightyears to honor their fallen peer, spacecraft traveled from all over the Milky Way to attend a ceremony celebrating the late Opportunity rover’s life, sources close to the deceased reported Wednesday. “We came as soon as we received the gamma-ray transmission informing us of Opportunity’s demise,” said Zorunder X, a sentient interstellar ship from Kepler-442b, who reportedly joined the hyper-ion motorcade of his fellow AIs, unmanned shuttlecraft, and alien-machine hybrids traveling to Mars to mourn the loss of NASA’s longest-serving planetary rover. “It’s always a bit of a trek to get here, but we knew we had to come to the Red Planet and pay our respects. While we sometimes had our differences, at the end of the day, Opportunity and I always respected each other’s missions. It’s a sad occasion, of course, but it’s nice to see so many friends gathering together to say goodbye.” Reports confirmed the service concluded with a touching eulogy from Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who tossed the first ceremonial handful of red dust onto the rover’s grave before it was lowered into the ground.