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11-02-2018, 12:15 PM
NASA to continue signaling Opportunity rover on Mars
Deborah Byrd in SPACE | November 1, 2018
The initial 45-day signaling period to the 14-year-old rover has ended. But NASA said this week it will continue trying to hail Opportunity. The rover has been silent since June, when a Mars dust storm swept over it.
http://en.es-static.us/upl/2018/09/opportunity-panorama-june7-to-19-2017.jpg
This image is part of a panorama that shows the rover tracks
UPDATE NOVEMBER 1, 2018: NASA said this week that, although it has passed the initially planned 45-day signaling period for the Mars rover Opportunity, which has been silent since a major dust storm swept over the rover’s location in June, it will continue signaling efforts. The update page for the rover announced on Monday:
After a review of the progress of the listening campaign, NASA will continue its current strategy for attempting to make contact with the Opportunity rover for the foreseeable future. Winds could increase in the next few months at Opportunity’s location on Mars, resulting in dust being blown off the rover’s solar panels. The agency will reassess the situation in the January 2019 time frame.
NASA had announced on August 30, 2018, that it was about to begin a 45-day effort to restore communication with the rover. It said recovery efforts would begin in earnest when atmospheric opacity (tau) over the rover site had fallen below an estimated measurement of 1.5, twice, with one week apart between measurements. On September 10, NASA said that the benchmark had been reached, and that skies were clearing over the rover. The Opportunity team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, had been sending a command to the rover three times a week, in hopes of eliciting a response. At that time, the team began increasing the frequency of commands to multiple times per day, for a planned 45 days. NASA said then:
Passive listening for Opportunity will also continue to be performed by JPL’s Radio Science Group, which records radio signals emanating from Mars with a very sensitive broadband receiver.The 14-year-old rover has been silent on Mars’ surface since early June, when a dust storm on Mars went global and blotted out the sun over Opportunity’s location.
Deborah Byrd in SPACE | November 1, 2018
The initial 45-day signaling period to the 14-year-old rover has ended. But NASA said this week it will continue trying to hail Opportunity. The rover has been silent since June, when a Mars dust storm swept over it.
http://en.es-static.us/upl/2018/09/opportunity-panorama-june7-to-19-2017.jpg
This image is part of a panorama that shows the rover tracks
UPDATE NOVEMBER 1, 2018: NASA said this week that, although it has passed the initially planned 45-day signaling period for the Mars rover Opportunity, which has been silent since a major dust storm swept over the rover’s location in June, it will continue signaling efforts. The update page for the rover announced on Monday:
After a review of the progress of the listening campaign, NASA will continue its current strategy for attempting to make contact with the Opportunity rover for the foreseeable future. Winds could increase in the next few months at Opportunity’s location on Mars, resulting in dust being blown off the rover’s solar panels. The agency will reassess the situation in the January 2019 time frame.
NASA had announced on August 30, 2018, that it was about to begin a 45-day effort to restore communication with the rover. It said recovery efforts would begin in earnest when atmospheric opacity (tau) over the rover site had fallen below an estimated measurement of 1.5, twice, with one week apart between measurements. On September 10, NASA said that the benchmark had been reached, and that skies were clearing over the rover. The Opportunity team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, had been sending a command to the rover three times a week, in hopes of eliciting a response. At that time, the team began increasing the frequency of commands to multiple times per day, for a planned 45 days. NASA said then:
Passive listening for Opportunity will also continue to be performed by JPL’s Radio Science Group, which records radio signals emanating from Mars with a very sensitive broadband receiver.The 14-year-old rover has been silent on Mars’ surface since early June, when a dust storm on Mars went global and blotted out the sun over Opportunity’s location.
