Opportunity, also known as MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B) or MER-1, and nicknamed "Oppy", is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 to late 2018. 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 Spirit (MER-A) touched down on the other side of the planet. With a planned 90-sol duration of activity (slightly more than 90 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 exceed its operating plan by 14 years, 46 days (in Earth time), 55 times its designed lifespan. By June 10, 2018, when it last contacted NASA, the rover had traveled a distance of 45.16 kilometers (28.06 miles).
Mission highlights included the initial 90-sol mission, finding extra-martian 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 described as a "second landing site". The 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, but it did not, suggesting either a catastrophic failure or that a layer of dust had covered its solar panels. NASA hoped to re-establish contact with the rover, citing a windy period that could potentially clean off its solar panels. On February 13, 2019, NASA officials declared that the Opportunity mission was complete, after the spacecraft had failed to respond to over 1,000 signals sent since August 2018.
After it fell silent during a planet-encircling dust storm on Mars in June, denial was easy. The rover had weathered dust storms before and even outlived its twin, Spirit, which became mired in Martian soil and ended its mission in 2011.
After 15 years, the Mars Opportunity rover's mission has ended
The rover's last message to its team before the storm hit in full force, as has been widely shared this week, was akin to "My battery is low and it's getting dark." Nobody wanted Oppy, as the team called her, to be stranded in the storm.
Oppy's engineers sent over 800 commands to wake her up or help her out. They were convinced she could recover after she outlasted her original 90-day mission that began in 2004.
The windy season came and went on Mars, ending in January. And after sending a final command this week that went unanswered, NASA bid Opportunity farewell by officially concluding her mission and sending her off with both poignant and celebratory remembrance.
I would say it was hard to believe I could get so emotional over the "death" of a vehicle, but I've been verklempt over the loss of TV characters who didn't even exist in this world, unlike Opportunity.
And in case you can't read the Doctor's caption even if you expanded it, here it is:
Yet.
'Doctor Who' will be around for a long time and the plot lines have interfered with real life historical events in the past - the London fire, the first moon landing, and the disappearance of Agatha Christie. So maybe this touching moment could be visualized one day on the TV series.
Allonsy!
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