When it comes to long life,
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity takes after its robotic twin
Spirit.
Today Opportunity
officially hit the one-year mark in its mission to explore Mars and send
home data about the red planet's conditions and its history of water. The
longevity of the two rovers -- Spirit celebrated its own one-year
anniversary on Jan. 3
-- has been a stunning success for rover scientists and
engineers, who originally planned for just a 90-day mission.
"This whole mission has
surpassed all of our expectations," said Steven Squyres, principal
investigator for the rover mission at Cornell University.
Opportunity landed at Meridiani
Planum at 12:05 a.m. EST (0505 a.m. GMT) on Jan. 25, 2004, though it was
still late Jan. 24 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena,
California where the mission was being managed. Squyres said the entire
rover team, including managers, engineers and scientists, planned a one-year
celebration Monday night during a two-day mission science meeting
at JPL.
But while Squyres said he
looked forward to anniversary party, he is still waiting for Jan. 31. It
was on that day in 2004 that Opportunity rolled off its landing
platform and planted six wheels in Martian soil, he told SPACE.com.
"I've always felt that we
had six terrifying events in this mission; two launches, two landings and two
egresses," Squyres said. "And it wasn't until both [rovers] were in their native
environments on Mars, for me, that I could really feel like I could breathe a
sigh of relief."
Only a few major glitches
have plagued Opportunity, including a stuck heater, which was a
glutton for power early in the mission but circumvented later by the addition of
a "deep sleep" mode during a software update. The
rover's rear hazard-identification camera has also suffered some minor mottling
in images due to dust picked up during recent investigations of its heat shield,
JPL officials said.
A flood of
science
Both Spirit and Opportunity
have returned a wealth of data back to Earth, but rover scientists concur that
Opportunity has made the lion's share of Mars science
discoveries.
"When you look at the most
important accomplishments of the mission, a lot of them were due to
Opportunity," Squyres said. "It was the one that found the really powerful
evidence for a habitable environment in Mars' past. It's sort have been
the good luck rover for this whole thing."
It was Opportunity's
studies at its initial landing site Eagle Crater that gave scientists conclusive
proof that the region had once been drenched in liquid water.
Scientists now believe that Opportunity's Meridiani Planum landing zone
supported a habitable
environment and possibly a salty sea.
Matt Golombek, a rover
scientist at JPL, spent years working to pinpoint Opportunity's landing
site.
"There, we have been
extraordinary," Golombek said in a telephone interview. "But we've only been
able to look at a section of rock maybe 10 meters thick, and we want to know how
do these rocks relate to what's above and beneath them."
Mars rocks have not
been the only target for Opportunity's panoramic sights. The rover has
also been able to swing by its own heat shield, which it
cast off during the fiery entry into Mars' atmosphere. Opportunity's
images and data taken of the scorched and twisted debris may help engineers
develop better heat shields for future missions, NASA officials said.
The rover has also stumbled
upon an iron meteorite, the first
ever found on another world, which has galvanized rover and
non-mission scientists alike to discuss its importance to their understanding of
Mars. But for Squyres, just the fact that Opportunity has managed to move from
Eagle Crater, to Endurance, to its heat shield and the meteorite is
impressive.
"The value of mobility
can't be overstated," he said of both Opportunity and Spirit. "We keep finding
new stuff with both vehicles, and now this completely new and different-looking
rock. No matter when this mission ends, there will still be something out
there...that's one of the things I've had to come to terms
with."
More exploration
ahead
NASA officials have said
the Mars rover mission is currently funded through March, with an average cost
of about $3 million a month. But Spirit and Opportunity are in their second
lifetime extension since the close of their respective 90-day mission in April
2004, and the prospect of another extension seems good so long as they continue
to send home good data.
"There is certainly talk of
getting another extension," Squyres said.
Rover handlers said that
Opportunity, like its twin Spirit - which is busy crawling over hills at its
Gusev Crater landing site, still has much to do. To date the rover
has driven 1.3 miles (2.3 kilometers) and engineers plan to send the
rover toward a circular feature dubbed "Vostok." A longer term goal for the
rover is the vast Victoria Crater, six times larger than Endurance, which
lies across what researchers call "etched terrain" -- a region they're not sure
Opportunity will be able to pass through.
"It's a very exciting time
for Opportunity," Golombek said.
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