Starship Asterisk*

Opportunity at Perseverance Valley

Explanation: Opportunity had already reached Perseverance Valley by June of 2018. Its view is reconstructed in a colorized mosaic of images taken by the Mars Exploration Rover's Navcam. In fact, Perseverance Valley is an appropriate name for the destination. Designed for a 90 day mission, Opportunity had traveled across Mars for over 5,000 sols (martian solar days) following a January 2004 landing in Eagle crater. Covering a total distance of over 45 kilometers (28 miles), its intrepid journey of exploration across the Martian landscape has come to a close here. On June 10, 2018, the last transmission from the solar-powered rover was received as a dust storm engulfed the Red Planet. Though the storm has subsided, eight months of attempts to contact Opportunity have not been successful and its trailblazing mission ended after almost 15 years of exploring the surface of Mars.

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Mission completed, Opportunity. Extremely well done. Now rest in peace.

Ann

Oh, that is so sad...I was hoping it would continue...but it did a super great job... and 15 years for batteries, even here on Earth is pretty good... maybe there is just too much dust on the solar panels?

:---[===] *

Try this and recall Opportunity's exploits. Better seen on a mobile phone, because then as you turn and pan, the view moves with you, as if you have a porthole out onto the surface of Mars:

https://www.360cities.net/image/mars-op ... HJHCUM2zKs

I tjhink this is a better tribute than the APOD!
John

Here's to a great rover! So sad it's Mission is over!

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:25 pm
Here's to a great rover! So sad it's Mission is over!

It was 56 years in Martian doggie years

JohnD wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 8:56 am Try this and recall Opportunity's exploits. Better seen on a mobile phone, because then as you turn and pan, the view moves with you, as if you have a porthole out onto the surface of Mars:

https://www.360cities.net/image/mars-op ... HJHCUM2zKs

I tjhink this is a better tribute than the APOD!
John

In your 360 quest don't miss the overhead view and the sun.

The date in the corner fo the image is a little inconsistent. Sol 5074 was the beginning of May, not June. (June was the last time we heard from Opportunity).

JohnD wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 8:56 am Try this and recall Opportunity's exploits. Better seen on a mobile phone, because then as you turn and pan, the view moves with you, as if you have a porthole out onto the surface of Mars:
https://www.360cities.net/image/mars-op ... HJHCUM2zKs

Wow, that's a great panorama, with an excellent job done of matching the individual pancam frames to avoid gaps and discontinuities. I'm a little puzzled, though, Opportunity's IDD ("robotic arm") seems to be completely missing from the photo. It should be at the front-- even fully stowed, it should be at least partially visible from the pancam.

here's a view looking down: https://mars.nasa.gov/system/resources/ ... -full2.jpg

Imagine buying a car to possibly drive 200,000 miles but actually going 3 million with no repair or fuel costs and lasting for 500 years.

It did cost $400 million but what does our auto industry pay to design a new car? It was a rewarding Opportunity!

Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:19 pm Imagine buying a car to possibly drive 200,000 miles but actually going 3 million with no repair or fuel costs and lasting for 500 years. :roll:

It did cost $400 million but what does our auto industry pay to design a new car? It was a rewarding Opportunity! :clap:

Well, to be fair, there were maintenance costs. Many millions of dollars went into extending the program, year after year. Money well spent, of course, but totaling in the end to much more than $400 million.

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:24 pm

Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:19 pm Imagine buying a car to possibly drive 200,000 miles but actually going 3 million with no repair or fuel costs and lasting for 500 years.

It did cost $400 million but what does our auto industry pay to design a new car? It was a rewarding Opportunity!

Well, to be fair, there were maintenance costs. Many millions of dollars went into extending the program, year after year. Money well spent, of course, but totaling in the end to much more than $400 million.

True, that data was too hard to find, but autos also cost extra if my recall is correct.

Gosh! And Mr.Musk throws away one of his cars atop a Falcon rocket, to absolutely no benefit at all, except lots of headlines.
He is an annoying man!

John

JohnD wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 4:50 pm Gosh! And Mr.Musk throws away one of his cars atop a Falcon rocket, to absolutely no benefit at all, except lots of headlines.
He is an annoying man!

I imagine it was a highly stripped down version, which would not have operated at all left on Earth. And don't underestimate the potential business value of PR and advertising. (But he's still annoying.)

geoffrey.landis wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 3:50 pm

JohnD wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 8:56 am Try this and recall Opportunity's exploits. Better seen on a mobile phone, because then as you turn and pan, the view moves with you, as if you have a porthole out onto the surface of Mars:
https://www.360cities.net/image/mars-op ... HJHCUM2zKs

Wow, that's a great panorama, with an excellent job done of matching the individual pancam frames to avoid gaps and discontinuities. I'm a little puzzled, though, Opportunity's IDD ("robotic arm") seems to be completely missing from the photo. It should be at the front-- even fully stowed, it should be at least partially visible from the pancam.

here's a view looking down: https://mars.nasa.gov/system/resources/ ... -full2.jpg

It's not clear that we would necessarily see the arm when it is stowed, particularly if the camera was somewhat to the rear when that frame was made. I think there may be a bit of "elbow" visible at the upper right, poking out behind the panel. It's also possible it was removed from the final mosaic for some good reason, such as having moved between two frames, or not being stitchable across two frames because of parallax error.

neufer wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:54 pm

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:25 pm
Here's to a great rover! So sad it's Mission is over!

It was 56 years in Martian doggie years

And now the adventure is over!

neufer wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:54 pm

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:25 pm
Here's to a great rover! So sad it's Mission is over!

It was 56 years in Martian doggie years

"Rover" is indeed a common name given to dogs.
This one, was called K-9. (With apologies to Looney Toons)

I still think the next thing we should land on Mars would be a car wash.

Credit Wikipedia! K-9"s Master

I'd like to offer my thanks to all the humans who made possible the twin robotic Martian geologists, Spirit and Opportunity, and who provided us with so many wonderful images and scientific results. It is a great time to be alive.

Mars is red,
Earth is blue,
Bring Oppy back
That's what we'll do.