Opportunity's Last Message: Why did it go silent on Mars?

[Music] my battery is low and it's getting dark this is the final message NASA scientists received from the opportunity Rover on Mars launched in the summer of 2003 with its twin rover spirit the missions were designed to last just 90 Martian days shocking the NASA mission planners both opportunity and spirit survived over 20 times longer than predicted the twins landed on opposite sides of the planet in January 2004 opportunity was sent to a place called the home I can't pronounce this word Meridiani Planum and that is where they sent opportunity spirit meanwhile was sent to the other side of the planet landing in the Gusev crater after landing 25 kilometers out of its target zone and falling into a small crater known as Eagle crater Opportunity took his first pictures the NASA scientists were stunned to discover that they had landed upon exactly what they were looking for after taking samples of nearby rocks the Opportunity rover allowed scientists back home to make strong hypotheses concerning the past presence of water on Mars this was one of the main objectives of the mission in 2005 opportunity became launched in a sand dune with several wheels smoked in the Sun luckily for opportunity scientists on earth were able to figure out the best way to free the rover without causing significant damage after six weeks stuck in the Sun opportunity was finally freed and proceeded with its mission unfortunately for the twin Spirit a spot of soft sand would mean the end of his travels in 2009 spirit became lodged in a Sun trap it was stuck at such an angle that hampered its ability to collect energy from its solar panels for the following eight months NASA scientists tried to figure out how to free spirit but were unsuccessful for a few months here after spirit continued making observations from its stationary location until communication with the spirits stopped in March 2010 NASA desperately attempted to regain contact until May 2011 at which point the unresponsive Rover was declared dead opportunity meanwhile had soldiered on avoiding dangerous Sun traps and dust devils he studied Victoria crater and in this orbital image we can actually see opportunity let's take a closer look opportunity spent almost two years of Victoria crater before setting off to its final destination a resting place endeavour crater he took opportunity three years to reach endeavour upon arrival at a valley on the rim of the endeavour crater Opportunity had covered a total distance equivalent to a marathon the valley was subsequently named Marathon Valley opportunity diligently rolled around the rim of the crater for a further three years in 2014 NASA reported the opportunity was suffering from amnesia events in which the rover failed to write data this was believed to be due to an age-related Fault in one of the rover's seven memory banks NASA tried to work around this fault by forcing opportunity not to use the failed memory bank however these events continued to occur then in June 2018 after surviving for almost 14 years and covering over 45 kilometers opportunity made its final contact this is the last picture NASA received along with a string of data that basically translates to my battery's low and it's getting dark NASA had observed a global scale dust on développé blocking out 90% of the sunlight reaching the surface of Mars and presumed opportunity could not recharge they weren't particularly worried at this point as this has happened to opportunity before the hope was that once the storm had subsided a windy period would follow blowing any remaining dust off of the solar panels however in the following seven months NASA sent more than 835 recovery commands but to no avail opportunity would not wake up opportunity was originally programmed to enter hibernation mode if his batteries became too long as the temperatures on Mars can be extremely low opportunity has always had a method to keep itself warm however due to the length of the dust storm and the depleting of its batteries opportunity had essentially frozen to death [Music] On February 13 2009 teen NASA declared an official end to the mission the last data sent to opportunity from NASA was the song I'll be seeing you by Billie Holiday past and present members of the mission team gathered in JPL space flight operations facility to watch these final commands being sent almost like a funeral there were some emotional moments with some people present who had spent their whole working life on opportunity if humans ever land on Mars I think it would be fitting to rescue both spirit and opportunity and reunite the twin rovers what do you miss the most about the opportunity Rover if you would like to learn more about how deep space communication works head on over to the channel new mind to learn about this and other fascinating engineering videos don't you dare subscribe please send help elder fox has locked me in his computer I'm not pronouncing any more words I'm sick of it you

Channel: ElderFox Documentaries

Views: 3,601,674

Rating: 4.893363 out of 5

Keywords: what happened to the opportunity rover, the story of opportunity, opportunity mars rover, spirit mars rover, my battery is low and its getting dark, its getting dark and my battery is low, nasa, what happened to nasas opportunity rover, opportunity rover dead

Id: m0P8ikZR6PE

Length: 6min 50sec (410 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 22 2019