Opportunity Rover caught in dust storm - Intrepid rover struggling to survive - Sensationalist Headlines

For the second time in its career, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is hunkering down on the Red Planet and foregoing scientific operations as a dust storm whirls around the intrepid little rover. Opportunity weathered – with some difficulty – a massive, global dust storm in 2007, remarkably surviving despite extremely low power levels generated by its solar panels during the event. NASA announced last night that the current dust storm is now worse – in terms of total sunlight blocked – than the 2007 storm. Source https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/558/8cfd3331-614b-42af-8b27-a60ee2a4b0c6/image.png To give you a rough idea of just how dark it is around Opportunity right now, it reached a level of 10.8 late Sunday. Opportunity has served over 5000 Sols on Mars, despite being originally designed for 90. We may well lose another of our amazing machines before this is done.

Well, the mission has been a massive success even if Opportunity finally kicks the bucket. Nevertheless, here's hoping for another 5000 sols.

I don't want Opportunity to go like this though. Not in the cold dark, unable to transmit it's farewell. I'd rather it break down trying to do science than be killed by the cold.

It would be pretty cool if they sent some new rovers with drills intending to carve holes into the martian stone. You know, to like, avoid sandstorm deaths.

nuclear isotope batteries and bigger loving hearts

I don't think it's going to go down in any other way to be honest. I wish my phone was made by the people that made this damn rover.

New rovers, like Curiosity and her sister being launched in 2020, are powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators so they can always be running no matter the conditions outside.

It's times like this that I regret that we're all squeamish about sending nuclear fuel sources down with rovers. A small reactor could keep the rover warm and powered for at least as long as the actual rovers have been operating.

It's really just a matter of cost. Curiosity and her sister are a part of NASA's Flagship Program so they received much more funding in comparison to Spirit and Opportunity. Spirit and Opportunity cost $820 million for both rovers and everything associated with getting them there and communicating with them. Curiosity and her satellite alone cost $2.5 billion. NASA isn't rally squemish about nuclear material on other planets, the first martian launders, the Viking probes launched in 1975, had nuclear power. It's mainly a concern with a launch failure on Earth contaminating hundreds of kilometers with radiation. It's why all NASA probes launch on ULA rockets since they have a 100% reliability rate.

There is a NASA briefing on the situation later today (17.30 UTC) which means this is pretty serious. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7158 Hang in there little guy.

http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/PIA15279_3rovers-stand_D2011_1215_D521_br2.jpg Dude Mars rovers are so fucking cool. I hope Opportunity makes it. But at least he performed way above his calling. (Opportunity is represented by the fella to the far left)

It's also a case of NASA simply lacking plutonium to run its RTGs (okay, perhaps this wasn't the case back when Opportunity was planned) - the US hasn't been producing any for decades iirc. Think the Department of Energy is looking into starting up production again, though.

DoE is, but they're also being pressured by certain elements in the DoD to restart pit production for weapons, while at the same time the DoE's leadership has been trying to hamfistedly scrap our only way to recycle weapons-grade material into commerical fuel (MOX in South Carolina), and has been trying to pass off WIPP in New Mexico as a safe waste storage site when in fact WIPP has a lot of problems and NM's government probably won't let WIPP become a replacement for Yucca Mountain. DoE just has their head up their ass 24/7 now in regards to nuclear.

it does have nuclear heaters but they're not enough to keep it from freezing or from larger parts from freezing. the biggest single issue is power though, if the battery dies then there's nothing to tell it to restart when it does clear up

Stay safe out there little guy. Honestly after all this rover's survived already we should recover it and put it in a museum.

Hoping it can wake back up, little guy has been going so strong all these years, would be cool if it can go a little more.

i am genuinely upset over this little robot. i cannot imagine a more cruel and nightmarish fate than being dying alone in the cold and dark, even after all this time well beyond its' service/life expectancy. that's just not fair. i'm rooting for our space rover boy, i hope opportunity makes it. i hope some day we can recover it.

just remember: it feels nothing.

heartless bastard

So I'm a bit late coming to sum this up, but NASA consider the situation "Concerning but Survivable" One thing about dust storms is that while they block out the sun, they do increase ambient temperature. Between the 6(?) nuclear heaters it has (about 1W of heat each) and this ambient temperature rise they think rover should stabilise around -36C, when the unsafe region for cold starts at -40C. As Sableye says above it's more of keeping the mission clock running, if that clock runs out of power the Rover will not be able to wake itself up again to recharge properly. This Dust Storm is going global from the looks of it and it could be pretty bad if it lasts too long for Opportunity retain enough power.

yes but we said the same of voyager and look at what happened to Kirk and Friends!

It'd be interesting to see if the Mars Colony could retrieve it and mail it back or at least build a memorial for it if it's out of commission.

This has happened before, just not at this level so quickly. I just worry about dust accumulating on it's solar panels lessening the amount of sunlight it can collect, after being on mars for 15 years, it has to be totally filthy at this point, and a big dust storm like this will only make it worse.

Neither do you

it's Ok mark watney will save it. *consults book* ohkay well andy weir nixed that idea...