Farewell, Opportunity Rover

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.

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