NASA bids goodbye to Mars rover after eight months of dead silence

After hundreds of attempts to wake it up from its long slumber, NASA has declared its Opportunity rover dead after serving for almost 15 years on Mars.

NASA’s Opportunity rover went silent and stopped communicating back in June 2018 after the Red Planet was engulfed in a severe, massive global dust storm, preventing the rover’s solar panels from storing power.

After 830 rescue commands and efforts to regain contact, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) made their last attempt to revive the rover, but were left disappointed, and finally declared it dead.

After 800+ attempts to contact @MarsRovers Opportunity, today we’re announcing the end of a successful Martian mission. Intended to explore the Red Planet for 90 days, Oppy outlived its mission lifetime by 14+ years. Join us live now: https://t.co/zJwTTpQNwp #ThanksOppy pic.twitter.com/U4J26TfzDv

— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) February 13, 2019

As per NASA, though the mission was designed to run for 90 Martian days, but ended up exploring for around 15 years from 2004 to 2019. During its glorious time spent on Mars, the rover sent back useful information such as finding proof of liquid water in ancient Mars, sending back over 217,000 images, and also set the off-world driving record.

“It is because of trailblazing missions such as Opportunity that there will come a day when our brave astronauts walk on the surface of Mars,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

Meanwhile, NASA also has few more rovers roaming around the Martian surface including the InSight lander and the Curiosity rover. NASA is also planning to land a new Mars 2020 rover in July 2020.