NASA’s rover Opportunity has just marked its 12th anniversary on Mars, quite a feat for a machine that was only supposed to last three months.
The Martian traveller’s original mission was slated for just 90 days, but the elder statesman has been tooling around the craters of the Red Planet for over a decade instead.
This last Martian winter has been a particularly active one, after some handy winds helped to blow dust from its solar panels. The rover has been using its diamond rock grinder and other scientific tools to look for further clues about the history of the planet’s environment.
The target beneath the tool turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm in this image from NASA's... [+]
Opportunity used an airbag cushion to drop onto the surface of Mars in January of 2004, rolling around in the Eagle crater until it came to a stop and the airbag released it. Its twin Spirit dropped onto the other side of the planet and operated until it got stuck in 2009, finally ceasing all communication in 2011.
Opportunity’s first work was to inspect the rocks inside that crater, which gave scientists of evidence of wet and acidic conditions in the planet’s past.
Since then, the rover has toured a number of craters, including two years in the Victoria crater, and found extraMartian meteorites. It has been exploring the Endeavour crevice since 2011. The western rim of this crater has shown evidence of clay minerals which will have formed during these conditions, spotted by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in the skies up above.
Working on this side of the Marathon Valley also keeps Opportunity’s solar panels tilted toward the sun in the northern sky. As the winter draws to a close, the rover will get more and more sunlight to power its work.
"With healthy power levels, we are looking forward to completing the work in Marathon Valley this year and continuing onward with Opportunity," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement.
This month, the team used Opportunity’s rock grinder to get the surface crust off of a stone so it can examine the composition and texture of its interior.
The rover’s solar panels are currently generating more than 460 Watt hours per day, more than enough to drive the rover and its rock tool. Other winters have seen power drop dangerously low, including its first, when the mission had to refrain from moving the rover or grinding any rocks for more than four months.
If at any point too much dust becomes encrusted on Opportunity’s solar panels during one of these low power phases, it could become impossible for researchers on the ground to wake it back up. Until then, it looks like the rover may just run and run.
