Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Time is quickly running out for Mars’ latest casualty, NASA’s Opportunity Rover. After nearly seven months with no reply from the machine, NASA engineers feel increasingly distraught at the thought of losing the rover.
The American space agency is working under a deadline to call off attempts at reviving the Opportunity if no reply is heard over the coming weeks. Although not set in stone, that deadline is looming and has sent engineers scrambling for new solutions.
Whereas up until now NASA has sent a command three times a week to the rover to convince it to send back a signal as soon as it powers up, this week attempts are being made with an entirely different set of assumptions in mind.
NASA is pondering the fact that the one or both of the rover’s primary and secondary X-band radios have failed, hence now it is trying to tell Opportunity not only to send a signal home, but also to switch to its backup X-band radio.
Additionally, in case the rover's internal clock, which provides a timeframe for its computer brain, is offset, a command to reset the clock and respond via UHF has also been sent.
"Over the past seven months we have attempted to contact Opportunity over 600 times," said in a statement John Callas, project manager for Opportunity.
"While we have not heard back from the rover and the probability that we ever will is decreasing each day, we plan to continue to pursue every logical solution that could put us back in touch."
Despite these new attempts, NASA believes all of the above scenarios are the result of “unlikely events,” hence not much hope for an actual answer.
The Opportunity has been silent since June 2018, when a planet-wide dust storm prevented to rover from charging its batteries from the sun and caused it to enter minimal operations.
Hopes were that once the dust has settled, the Rover will recharge and go about its business as usual.
The Opportunity has been on Mars since 2004 when it landed on a mission that was supposed to last for only 90 days. On Friday, January 25, Opportunity would have turned 15 years on the job.
Whereas up until now NASA has sent a command three times a week to the rover to convince it to send back a signal as soon as it powers up, this week attempts are being made with an entirely different set of assumptions in mind.
NASA is pondering the fact that the one or both of the rover’s primary and secondary X-band radios have failed, hence now it is trying to tell Opportunity not only to send a signal home, but also to switch to its backup X-band radio.
Additionally, in case the rover's internal clock, which provides a timeframe for its computer brain, is offset, a command to reset the clock and respond via UHF has also been sent.
"Over the past seven months we have attempted to contact Opportunity over 600 times," said in a statement John Callas, project manager for Opportunity.
"While we have not heard back from the rover and the probability that we ever will is decreasing each day, we plan to continue to pursue every logical solution that could put us back in touch."
Despite these new attempts, NASA believes all of the above scenarios are the result of “unlikely events,” hence not much hope for an actual answer.
The Opportunity has been silent since June 2018, when a planet-wide dust storm prevented to rover from charging its batteries from the sun and caused it to enter minimal operations.
Hopes were that once the dust has settled, the Rover will recharge and go about its business as usual.
The Opportunity has been on Mars since 2004 when it landed on a mission that was supposed to last for only 90 days. On Friday, January 25, Opportunity would have turned 15 years on the job.
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