![]() But at least it was Mars that killed her - it wasn't the rover failing or something else. "And so just to lose that all of a sudden is really tough. "Me, personally, it's been really hard because this is a project I've worked on for over a third of my life at this point," Bean says. And I was really drawn to the idea of exploring and being so interested and caring about something that much."īean went to graduate school at Texas A&M University where she worked on the rover as a student and ultimately landed a job at JPL, where she joined the Opportunity mission team. "And when they got the confirmation the spacecraft landed, they were all cheering, they were so excited. "I especially remember them showing the landing footage," she says. Losing Opportunity, she says, is like a death in the family.īean was in high school when she saw a documentary about Opportunity called Roving Mars. Keri Bean was among those who helped send that last radio signal. "Prior to this storm, the vehicle was in, actually, remarkably good health," Callas said. "I made the decision to declare a spacecraft emergency because there wasn't enough energy for the rover to sustain activities," John Callas, Opportunity's project manager, told NPR. Spirit explored for more than five years before getting stuck in the sand, its solar-powered batteries draining until the robot fell silent.) (Opportunity's twin, a rover named Spirit that landed three weeks earlier on the other side of the planet, met a similar cold and dark fate. Her power dropped to a trickle, and she was last heard from on June 10. "It has blocked out so much sunlight, it has effectively turned day into night for Opportunity, which is located near the center of the storm, inside Mars' Perseverance Valley." ![]() As of June 10, it covered more than 15.8 million square miles (41 million square kilometers) - about the area of North America and Russia combined," NASA said at the time. "The storm is one of the most intense ever observed on the Red Planet. Over the next few days, the enormous storm swirled over the entire planet, covering Opportunity's solar panels with dust. On May 30, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted a dust storm heading toward Opportunity's location near the equator. The twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity were launched in 2003 and arrived at sites on Mars in January 2004. The robot found evidence of what's called hydrothermal events in which hot water percolates through rocks and changes their mineral content.Īn artist's concept shows a NASA Mars exploration rover on the surface of Mars. The second "was years and years later we got to the rim of a very ancient crater," Squyres said. That's when Opportunity found evidence that briny water once sloshed around on the surface of what is now a very dry planet. The first was right at the beginning at the landing site." Asked last summer to share two of his favorites, he said, "OK, I'll give you two. In the weeks, then months, then years following landing, Squyres appeared at numerous news conferences to talk about the rover's scientific discoveries. "I'm sorry, I'm just blown away by this." Squyres stopped midsentence to gawk at a new picture of the landing site that had just appeared on a monitor screen. "We knew, going into this, at a fine scale the texture of Meridiani Planum was unlike almost anything else on Mars. Squyres said during a news conference at JPL shortly after landing. "I will attempt no science analysis because it looks like nothing I've ever seen before in my life," rover principal investigator Steven W. This image is among the first taken by NASA's Opportunity rover after landing on a Martian plain called Meridiani Planum in January 2004.
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