Nasa Opportunity rover still lost on Mars as dust storm which engulfed the Red Planet begins...

metro.co.uk ^ | Monday 13 Aug 2018 2:53 pm | Jasper Hamill

[BenLurkin]

Nasa robot is still missing and presumed dead on the surface of Mars. Space scientists lost contact with the Opportunity Rover almost two months ago as it was buffeted by a huge dust storm which covered the entire surface of Mars.

The swirling maelstrom will have deposited powder onto the solar panels which power the exploration ‘droid, meaning it cannot recharge its battery to make contact with mission control back on Earth.

New pictures taken by professional and amateur astronomers in recent days have shown the features of Mars emerge once again as the dust settles.

But there’s still no sign of Opportunity and the mood at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is beginning to falter.

[Boogieman]

Maybe they should equip the next rover with a Dust Buster.

[fso301]

Well, wherever it is when it finally dies for good, someone will decide it had almost reached a very promising site to search for evidence of life and a new mission must be funded.

[Flick Lives]

It gave us 14 years of work in a hostile environment with no maintenance. Pretty damn impressive.

—

Indeed. I think it was intended to originally operate for 2 weeks. 14 years, and that is one harsh environment. And forget calling AAA. You can imagine what the towing charge would be!

[outofsalt]

Note to NASA, next Mars mission needs dust covers for the solar panels or windshield wipers.
I am not a engineer nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express anytime recently.

[Kickass Conservative]

The sad part of the story is that it never found the Flag our Astronauts planted there back in the 60’s. #;^)

[jmcenanly]

I'm certain that someone will figure out a way to make it work, given the opportunity.


Yes, I know that's the Pathfinder that he's working on

[BlackbirdSST]

And forget calling AAA. You can imagine what the towing charge would be!

We will park it in your yard for a cool billion, our shop for 750 million! Your call.

[21twelve]

Wasn’t the expected life only a few weeks/months?

Yeah - they sure got a lot of great “extra” science out of the thing. Opportunity was pretty much dormant anyway. I think it wasn’t too long ago that they woke it up to test the systems, but then shut it down again.

I’m assuming that the still active rover - Curiosity, is still okay?

[BBQToadRibs]

Opportunity’s initial mission length was 90 Martian days, obviously hoping for more and got that in spades. In early June this year it went into hibernation due to the dust storms, and at this point, may not be coming back out.

Curiosity has been on Mars 6 years now and is still operating.

[EVO X]

“I’m assuming that the still active rover - Curiosity, is still okay?”

Its power source is a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Other than a drilling arm problem which Nasa found a work around for, it is still functioning during the dust storm.

https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/mars-rover-curiosity-mission-updates/

[21twelve]

Thank you.

I just had to read a bit more on Curiosity. Designed life was 2 years. The NASA guys think 5 to 6 years is very doable (year 6 now). The plutonium source can last for 12 to 15 years iirc.

The NASA guy said that it probably won’t be the lack of energy that kills it, but a mechanical problem such as a motor or something. (Perhaps like the drill-arm problem?). But he also said that there is a lot of redundancy on the Rover - for example the 6(?) wheels all have their own motors, so if one motor goes out it isn’t a big deal.

Pretty amazing stuff.

[BBQToadRibs]

You gotta take your hat off to the engineers and technicians that design and assemble those rovers. Amazingly robust little workhorses.

[EVO X]

Pretty amazing stuff.

Ditto..

[logi_cal869]

Another “cleaning event” may be forthcoming.

Just an observation originating from the early days of the mission:

Failure to design a feature which would detect a dust storm environment on a planet known for such storms after decades of observation, and have no option to automatically go into standby with a backup charging panel, means this mission could just have easily ended in 90 days as intended rather than continuing for 14 years.

“Cleaning events” were ironically opportune, but exposed a glaring engineering failure which might have been easily overcome.

Worse, this article is an abject failure to report facts for omitting any details about “cleaning events” whatsoever, plus the ridiculous comment about the possibility that the “dust drops from its solar panels”...