Category Archives: Mars

Opportunity rover

Farewell, Opportunity Rover

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You Did a Good Job

Today’s the day that NASA announced the end of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity’s mission. For nearly fifteen years, this little, ungainly looking wheeled robot made its way across nearly 45 kilometers of Martian surface at Meridiani Planum. Its final resting spot is in a place called Perseverance Valley. That’s where it sent its last call home on June 10, 2018, just before a planet-wide dust storm descended.

For eight months, NASA has been calling out to Opportunity, hoping for an answer. It got silence. And so, today, the mission is declared done, a mission that was only supposed to last 90 days. Instead, Opportunity rolled on, year after year, returning valuable data about Mars and making astonishing achievements.

What Opportunity Showed Us

Of course, the rover showed us a yearly continuum of conditions on the Red Planet. It uncovered evidence about the warm, wet past on the planet, and showed Martian landscapes no one had seen before its arrival. It faithfully sent back images and data until the last moment, even as its systems were aging.

NASA shared a lovely video about Opportunity that shares its triumphs with all of us. The mission has been a major success, teaching us not just about Mars, but about what our faithful robot servants can accomplish after we build them and teach them how to explore in our place.

Today, a lot of people are mourning the loss of a little spacecraft. But, we should also be proud. WE did this. People showed just how clever and smart we can be when we set our minds to explore beyond our planet.

Mars

Always a Good Day to Go to Mars

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Expecting Great Insights from InSight

Yesterday’s landing of the InSight mission on Mars was another step toward the eventual extended human exploration of the Red Planet. Sure, this lander is supposed to be sussing out the interior of the Red Planet, and that will provide major insights into how Mars is structured. But, InSight is part of the larger exploration theme of the planet that some people will someday call home.

As it unfolded its solar panels late in the afternoon and got a first good charge for the power supply, InSight sent back some great images of Mars. By now, the scene is familiar: rocky red plains with a faint pink sky. No life that we can see. Absolutely no standing water. Few clouds. Just the endless horizons of a planet that we’ve been exploring since the 1960s.

The Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) took this picture off the Martian surface on Nov. 26, 2018

Insight’s Mission

So, what’s InSight going to do? The spacecraft is now being fully vetted for its extended mission. That will take a couple of months, which lets the science team will figure out where and when to deploy its instruments. Those include a little “mole” that will dig deep into the surface to monitor seismic actions. In the meantime, it is equipped with a robot arm and cameras so that InSight can continue the tradition of taking great images of the Red Planet. The spacecraft is already beginning to monitor the weather at its landing site in Elysium Planitia.

Who Did This?

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the huge team of scientists and technical staff who have made this mission possible. It spans the globe. Experts ranging from partners in France and Germany to scientists in Switzerland are involved. So are instrument buildings and planetary scientists from England, and instrument experts from Poland, and Spain. Of course, NASA is involved, particularly through JPL in Pasadena, CA. There are also scientists in Denver and across the country working on this mission.

Exploration is not a heroic, single-human endeavor anymore when it comes to space and planetary science. It takes a village — heck, it takes a world-wide effort! These people should be very proud of their accomplishments, and the advances in knowledge to come from the mission. This is what science is all about: seeking to answer questions and getting the data to do just that.