Press

NASA’s longest-running Mars mission may be on the chopping block.

While President Donald Trump’s 2021 budget request clearly threatened NASA missions like the jet-borne telescope SOFIA, another potential shutdown was tucked inside the request. Proposed cuts to the 2001 Mars Odyssey program would bring its budget to a scant million dollars a year, effectively terminating the mission. The budget request is just that, a request; Congress makes the ultimate decision about budgets and can choose to continue funding the mission. Nevertheless, the threat has Mars scientists anxious about the mission’s future.ADVERTISING

“I can’t think of any situation where you would say, OK, let’s just turn it off,” said Tanya Harrison, a planetary scientist who studies Mars and has relied on Odyssey observations. “You never know what you’re going to find if you keep going with these missions.”

Read more: Is the end near for Mars Odyssey? Trump’s proposed 2021 budget could doom long-lived mission (Space.Com)

From Shannon Proudfoot, Maclean’s:

“Tanya Harrison was an undergraduate student when the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) named Opportunity landed on the red planet in 2004. She was studying astronomy and physics at the University of Washington at the time, and she hoped that in her future career, she might get to work on a rover like Opportunity.

The rover and her twin, Spirit, were designed for 90-day missions, collecting images and performing geological analysis on the fourth planet from the sun, but instead, Opportunity trundled along for an astonishing 15 years (Spirit’s mission ended in 2010).”

Read more: Opportunity, the overachieving Mars rover, finally says goodbye (MacLean’s)

From Alan Yu, NPR:

One year after Curiosity arrived on the red planet, the team at NASA marked the occasion by having the rover play a song to itself.…

…

Planetary scientist Tanya Harrison worked on Curiosity. She said people might especially identify with rovers, versus other robots like satellites, because rovers have ‘eyes’ and ‘arms.’

“You can think of it as something that is alive in some way and it’s acting as this emissary for us as humans on Mars, since we can’t get there ourselves just yet.”

Read more: All Things Considered: The Whyy – Is NASA’s Curiosity rover lonely on Mars? (NPR)

From Scott Simon, NPR:

Read more: Opinion: Good Night Oppy, A Farewell To NASA’s Mars Rover (NPR)

From the Editorial Board of the New York Times: An Intrepid Explorer of Mars Falls Silent (The New York Times)

From Cal Jeffrey, TechSpot:

It appears that NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity is dead. Mars scientist Dr. Tanya Harrison tweeted that the last commands sent to the rover were met with silence. NASA will be holding a press conference (below) at 2 pm EST to discuss what this means and answer questions.…

Read more: Mars Opportunity rover appears to be dead (TechSpot)

From Alexandra Witze, Nature:

After exploring for 15 years across 45 kilometres of the Meridiani Planum region of Mars, NASA’s Opportunity rover is officially dead.…

…Emotions ran high at mission control on the evening of the final contact attempt. “There was silence. There were tears. There were hugs,” tweeted Tanya Harrison, a Mars scientist at Arizona State University in Tempe.…

Read more: Opportunity lost: NASA says goodbye to pioneering Mars rover (Nature)

From Marina Koren, The Atlantic:

The Mars probe came barreling in. It streaked through the planet’s atmosphere at about 12,000 miles per hour. With the surface in sight, its parachute unfurled. The probe fired its rockets to slow itself down, and inflated its airbags to cushion the landing. Touching down gently, it bounced across the clay-colored terrain.…

…As engineers prepared to transmit their final commands, through massive radio antennae positioned around the world, the mood at JPL was somber, according to Tanya Harrison, a scientist on the mission.

“The rover surpassed every single expectation we could’ve possibly had,” Harrison says. “But I’m not sure anything can fully prepare you for the wave of emotion of hearing a mission you work on is coming to an end.”

Read more: NASA Declares a Beloved Mars Mission Over (The Atlantic)

From Adam Gabbatt and Nicola Davis, The Guardian:

Nasa declared the 15-year mission of the veteran Mars rover Opportunity finally over on Wednesday, crediting the robot as having “transformed our understanding of our planet”.

The golf buggy-sized vehicle last made contact with Earth eight months ago, after being caught in a global dust storm.…

…The final attempt at communication with Opportunity on Tuesday night was, it seems, an emotional affair. Dr Tanya Harrison, a planetary scientist who worked on the mission, tweeted: “There were tears. There were hugs. There were memories and laughs shared.

Read more: Nasa confirms Mars rover Opportunity is dead (The Guardian)

From Eric Mack, CNET:

NASA made its final attempts to contact its estranged Martian rover, Opportunity, late Tuesday. There was no response, and NASA is convening its leadership to deliver what appears to be a eulogy for its well-traveled robot Wednesday at 11 a.m. PT.

Tanya Harrison, an alum of Opportunity’s operations team, was in the room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Tuesday night and shared on Twitter: “Spent the evening at JPL as the last ever commands were sent to the Opportunity rover on #Mars. There was silence. There were tears.” Space fans shed tears too as NASA’s official announcement approached.…

Read more: NASA set to hold funeral for silent Mars Opportunity rover (CNET)

From Chris Burns, SlashGear:

NASA’s Opportunity Rover mission’s craft has spoken its last, and after 5,352 days on Mars, its watch is ended. NASA’s Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA science division chief, are expected to hold a conference at 2PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, February 13th, 2019, to make this announcement official. The day this rover died will be Sol 5352 (Martian solar days in operation), after 15 years and 20 days in service, having started roving on January 25th, 2004.

Read more: Opportunity Mars rover’s watch is ended (SlashGear)

From Devin Coldewey, TechCrunch:

Opportunity, one of two rovers sent to Mars in 2004, is officially offline for good, NASA  and JPL officials announced today at a special press conference. “I declare the Opportunity mission as complete, and with it the Mars Exploration Rover mission as complete,” said NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen.

The cause of Opportunity’s demise was a planet-scale sandstorm that obscured its solar panels too completely, and for too long, for its onboard power supply to survive and keep even its most elementary components running. It last communicated on June 10, 2018, but could easily have lasted a few months more as its batteries ran down — a sad picture to be sure. Even a rover designed for the harsh Martian climate can’t handle being trapped under a cake of dust at -100 degrees Celsius for long

Read more: Opportunity rover goes to its last rest after extraordinary 14-year mission (TechCrunch)