lpetrich
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Mars Rover Opportunity Is Dead After Record-Breaking 15 Years on Red Planet | Space noting Videos | Opportunity: NASA Rover Complete Mars Mission
The rover was launched atop a Delta II rocket on July 7, 2003, and it landed on Mars on January 25, 2004. It then traveled a total of 45 km / 28 mi on the planet's surface before it made its last contact on July 10, 2018, in the middle of a big dust storm. NASA's attempts to contact that rover all failed, even after that dust storm's dust had settled, and on February 13, 2019, NASA officially gave up.
A twin rover, Spirit, was launched atop another Delta II rocket on June 10, 2003, it landed on Mars in January 4, 2004, and it traveled on Mars 8 km / 5 mi before its last contact on March 22, 2010, a result of the cold Martian winter. NASA gave up on that rover on May 25, 2011.
Both rovers were 1.5 m / 4.9 ft high, 2.3 m / 7.5 ft wide, and 1.6 m / 5.2 ft long, and weighed 180 kg / 400 lb. Each one had six independently-driven wheels on a "rocker-bogie" suspension system, with a separate frame for each side's three wheels, and a subframe for the rear and middle wheels of each set. It could travel 5 cm/s / 2 cm/s, though on average, it was more like 0.85 cm/s / 0.35 in/s. Each rover's solar panels could generate as much as 180 watts of electricity in the daytime, and each rover had lithium-ion batteries for storage. Both rovers had onboard computers with a 20-MHz RAD6000 radiation-hardened CPU chip, 3 MB of EEPROM and 256 MB of flash memory.
Opportunity had traveled the farthest distance of any rover on another celestial body, beating Lunokhod 2 (1973, 39 km) and Apollo 17 (1972, 35 km). It also beat fellow Mars rovers Curiosity (20 km as of Feb 5, 2019), Spirit (8 km), and Sojourner (0.1 km).
Opportunity helped make several discoveries. An early one was "blueberries", from how they appeared in false color. These are tiny spherules of hematite (Fe2O3), about 0.1 - 0.25 mm in diameter, and they most likely formed as concretions from liquid water. Another one was layered rock -- strata. These included thin layers of gypsum, hydrated calcium sulfate, also observed from a Mars orbiter. This is also a result of deposition from liquid water.
So Opportunity found evidence that Mars had earlier had large amounts of liquid water on its surface, evidence that adds to the planet's numerous now-dry river valleys.
The rover was launched atop a Delta II rocket on July 7, 2003, and it landed on Mars on January 25, 2004. It then traveled a total of 45 km / 28 mi on the planet's surface before it made its last contact on July 10, 2018, in the middle of a big dust storm. NASA's attempts to contact that rover all failed, even after that dust storm's dust had settled, and on February 13, 2019, NASA officially gave up.
A twin rover, Spirit, was launched atop another Delta II rocket on June 10, 2003, it landed on Mars in January 4, 2004, and it traveled on Mars 8 km / 5 mi before its last contact on March 22, 2010, a result of the cold Martian winter. NASA gave up on that rover on May 25, 2011.
Both rovers were 1.5 m / 4.9 ft high, 2.3 m / 7.5 ft wide, and 1.6 m / 5.2 ft long, and weighed 180 kg / 400 lb. Each one had six independently-driven wheels on a "rocker-bogie" suspension system, with a separate frame for each side's three wheels, and a subframe for the rear and middle wheels of each set. It could travel 5 cm/s / 2 cm/s, though on average, it was more like 0.85 cm/s / 0.35 in/s. Each rover's solar panels could generate as much as 180 watts of electricity in the daytime, and each rover had lithium-ion batteries for storage. Both rovers had onboard computers with a 20-MHz RAD6000 radiation-hardened CPU chip, 3 MB of EEPROM and 256 MB of flash memory.
Opportunity had traveled the farthest distance of any rover on another celestial body, beating Lunokhod 2 (1973, 39 km) and Apollo 17 (1972, 35 km). It also beat fellow Mars rovers Curiosity (20 km as of Feb 5, 2019), Spirit (8 km), and Sojourner (0.1 km).
Opportunity helped make several discoveries. An early one was "blueberries", from how they appeared in false color. These are tiny spherules of hematite (Fe2O3), about 0.1 - 0.25 mm in diameter, and they most likely formed as concretions from liquid water. Another one was layered rock -- strata. These included thin layers of gypsum, hydrated calcium sulfate, also observed from a Mars orbiter. This is also a result of deposition from liquid water.
So Opportunity found evidence that Mars had earlier had large amounts of liquid water on its surface, evidence that adds to the planet's numerous now-dry river valleys.
What an amazing little rover.