NASA's long-lived Opportunity Mars rover has been silent since June 11 in the wake of a global dust storm that swept around the red planet, blotting out the sun and preventing the rover's batteries from recharging. Despite clearing skies, the rover has yet to wake up, but it's no longer out of sight.

In an image released Tuesday, Opportunity shows up as a small dot-like feature in a high-resolution image captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, showing the rover on the slopes of Perseverance Valley 166 miles below. Opportunity was slowly making its way down into the martian valley when the dust storm developed.

Launched in 2003, Opportunity bounced to an airbag-assisted landing in January 2004, kicking off a mission designed to last just three months. But the hardy spacecraft was still on the job 14 years later when it slipped into electronic hibernation after losing power.

NASA's Deep Space Network antennas are listening for any signals from Opportunity indicating an attempt to phone home and are now sending commands "in the blind" in hopes of helping the rover, if it is still able, to reset its internal clock and resume communications.</s>The dust has settled on Mars, at least to the point that NASA has finally spotted the rover Opportunity again.

An image taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed the rover that stopped communicating with NASA on June 10.

A massive global dust storm on Mars caused the solar-powered rover to shut down, and the storm only started to dissipate in late July.

The rover shut down on the slopes of a hill in the Perseverance Valley of the Red Planet, and while it’s now visible, it has yet to reconnect with NASA. The image taken by the Orbiter’s HiRISE camera is from about 166 miles above the surface. The box in the image is a 154-foot-wide are with the blip in the middle being the rover.

Opportunity and fellow Rover Spirit arrived to Mars in 2004. Both Spirit and Opportunity’s missions originally only called for 90 Martian days, but both kept soldiering on. Spirit got bogged down in 2009, but Opportunity had been exploring more than 5,000 Martian days and traveling more than 28 miles before it shut down.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory team that runs the rover program listens daily and sends a command several times a week to the rover in case it wakes back up.

Meanwhile, NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover was not affected as it is nuclear-powered, although the decrease in light had made photography more difficult and the rover is in the habit of protecting its camera after each use by pointing it toward the ground. So for now, Curiosity is the lone rover, with Opportunity on pause, Spirit having last communicated with NASA in 2010 and original rover Sojourner, which was part of the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997.

A fifth rover, part of the the Mars 2020 mission, is slated to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in July or August of 2020 to take advantage of Mars and Earth’s relative proximity for arrival in February 2021. Also, the European Space Agency is planning the ExoMars mission to land in 2021 with its own rover.</s>It’s been more than 100 days since a dust storm on Mars caused NASA's Opportunity rover to go dark, but there is new hope after a spacecraft orbiting the red planet spotted the small robot on the surface.

As the global dust storm blocked out sunlight, which is the source of Opportunity's power, the rover went into hibernation on June 11, the last time its team heard from the 14-year-old bot.

Opportunity's team on Earth at NASA have been trying without luck to contact the rover since the dust started to clear earlier this month. Right now, only about 25 percent of the sun's light is reaching the Martian surface, according to NASA.

The mission team has been listening for the rover using NASA's Deep Space Network Radio Science Receiver sending "sweep and beeps."

But there is hope, after HiRISE, a camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, spotted the small robot on the surface. The photo showed Opportunity, or Oppy as it's affectionately called, at the center of an area about 154 feet wide.

What Oppy's supporters were hoping to see is whether the robot's solar panels, or arrays, are clear of Martian dust, enabling them to power the rover again.

"The HiRISE image shows some reddening of the surrounding area, suggesting dust fallout, but it is not possible to determine how much dust is on the arrays themselves," Andrew Good, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote.

With this new image, the first of the rover since the storm, NASA will continue to wait for the dust to clear, continue to send commands to Oppy and wait for more imaging from HiRISE.

Recently, the Opportunity team said it would be increasing the frequency of commands it beams to the rover from multiple times a week to multiple times per day. NASA approved the plan to continue listening for Opportunity until January.

There is concern in the planetary science community the mission will end if Opportunity's team doesn't hear from the rover by the start of the New Year. Supporters have been using #WakeUpOppy on social media to encourage NASA to continue funding the robotic mission.

Opportunity has covered more than 28 miles on Mars during its 14 years on the red planet.</s>NASA scientists can now see Opportunity — their solar-powered probe that was lost in a Martian dust storm more than 100 days ago — but the vintage robot hasn't shown any signs of life.

Thanks to a high-resolution camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA said Tuesday it can see the Opportunity rover in Perseverance Valley, on the edge of a huge crater.

Opportunity was descending into the valley when a dust storm that was first detected 30 May swept over the region. In NASA's image, the vehicle appears as a tiny white dot.

The 15-year-old rover was last heard from on June 10, when it went into "sleep" mode as dust blocked out the Sun and darkness enveloped the Red Planet.

"NASA still hasn't heard from the Opportunity rover, but at least we can see it again," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement.

Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, are a pair of unmanned robotic vehicles designed by NASA to tool around on the Martian surface and transmit data about conditions there back to Earth.

They landed on Mars in 2003 on a mission meant to last 90 days and span 1,000 yards (meters).

Spirit lasted 20 times longer than that. It became stuck in soft soil in 2009, and its mission was formally declared over in 2011.

Opportunity is going on 60 times its planned mission life, has traveled 28 miles (45 kilometers) and found evidence of water on Mars and conditions that may have been suitable for sustaining microbial life.

Last month, NASA said it would work until mid-October to try to bring Opportunity back to life, a timeframe fans of "Oppy" said was too short.</s>A NASA Mars orbiter has spotted the agency’s Opportunity rover on the Red Planet for the first time since it went into hibernation after a dust storm swept over the region a little more than 100 days ago and blocked sunlight from reaching the rover. A high-resolution camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured the image of the rover on the slopes of the Red Planet’s Perseverance Valley, NASA said in a statement on Tuesday.

But the future of Opportunity is still in limbo as NASA has still not heard from the 14-year-old solar-powered rover.

The image of the rover, taken on September 20, was produced from about 267 kilometres above the Martian surface. The image showed that the dust storm over Perseverance Valley has substantially cleared.

NASA scientists estimated that the tau — a measurement of how much sunlight reaches the surface — over Opportunity to be a little higher than 10 during some points during the dust storm. The higher the tau, the less sunlight is available.

The tau has steadily fallen in the last several months. On September 20, tau was estimated to be about 1.3 by MRO’s Mars Color Imager camera.

According to scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, Opportunity will need a tau of less than 2.0 before the solar-powered rover will be able to recharge its batteries. No signal from Opportunity has been heard since june 10.

In an attempt to talk to the rover, the Opportunity team is increasing the frequency of commands it beams to the rover via the dishes of NASA’s Deep Space Network from three times a week to multiple times per day.</s>An image released by NASA shows the rover Opportunity, represented by a blip inside the white square, on Mars.

NASA got its first look at the Mars Opportunity rover months after it went radio silent following a dust storm.

The agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured an image of the Red Planet featuring a tiny blip identified as Opportunity. NASA released the image of Opportunity on Tuesday.

The rover was spotted on the planet's Perseverance Valley, where it was navigating at the time a dust storm hit the area in May.

The dust storm limited sunlight on the planet, forcing the solar-powered rover to go into a hibernation mode.

Two weeks ago, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory started increasing the frequency of signals to Opportunity in an attempt to wake the rover back up.

"Morale has been a little shaky," Michael Staab, an engineer for the program at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Space.com in August. "This is the first time she [Opportunity] has stopped talking to us and not resumed communication when we expected."

In August, engineers created a playlist of songs and beamed it to Opportunity to get the rover to reawaken.

Opportunity had been roving Mars' landscape since reaching the planet in 2004.</s>The Opportunity rover is still taking an extended nap on Mars, but NASA has caught sight of the little robot. With the aid of the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), NASA has pinpointed Opportunity’s location on the slopes of Perseverance Valley. Knowing where the rover ended up is a nice development, but it doesn’t get us much closer to reviving Opportunity.

NASA’s Opportunity is ancient by the standards of a Mars rover. It touched down on Mars in 2004, and has traveled more than 28 miles thus far. Opportunity operated continuously until June 2018. That’s when the plucky little rover was overtaken by a massive Martian dust storm. The image from MRO above (click for large version) was captured from 166 miles above the planet’s surface. The white box marks an area 154 feet across (47 meters). Opportunity is the small dot right in the center.

Mars occasionally experiences global dust storms, and the one over this past summer was particularly severe. According to NASA, the tau (a measure of how much light is blocked) reached more than 10. Without dust storms, the tau of Mars’ atmosphere hovers around 1. NASA captured the MRO image of Opportunity on September 20th when the Tau was again just 1.3.

The new image shows Opportunity where it stopped when NASA put it in hibernation mode several months ago. Since Opportunity is solar powered, NASA knew it would be unable to operate during the dust storm. The team hoped it would retain enough power to keep its heaters and communication system running, but that looks increasingly unlikely now.

According to NASA, the terrain around Opportunity looks redder than usual for that region. That could indicate dust from the storm has fallen in a thick layer across the Perseverance Valley. If a layer of dust has covered Opportunity’s solar panels, it may never wake up. It’s been several months of no contact from the rover, indicating it never managed to power back up after the storm settled. Without power for its heaters, the batteries may have become inoperable. So, it might not even matter if the solar panels are clear at this point.

Earlier this month, NASA set a 45-day deadline for Opportunity to wake up. If the rover does not miraculously awaken and ping Earth by then, NASA will consider the mission over. Not everyone is happy with that decision, but Opportunity’s chances are admittedly low.

Now read: The Martian Dust Storm Is Clearing, but Opportunity Remains Silent, NASA Celebrates 5 Years of Curiosity With New Mars Rover Video, and Strange ‘cauliflower’ rocks on Mars may hide clues to ancient life</s>After three months of radio silence, NASA’s Opportunity rover has emerged from a massive Martian dust storm, still silent but at least now visible.

The resilient rover has been photographed by NASA’s Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on the Red Planet’s Perseverance Valley where a global storm cut off its solar power, putting it in hibernation mode. NASA has consequently not received a single signal from it since June 10, despite increasing daily attempts to communicate, the space agency said on Tuesday.

“A key unknown is how much dust has fallen on the solar arrays,” NASA said in a release posted on the website for the University of Arizona in Tucson, which operates MRO’s HiRISE camera. “As the dusty sky continues to clear, the frequent commanding will continue and imaging will be repeated.”

An animated image released by NASA and seen here shows the amount of dust covering the rover’s location today compared to one Martian year ago, which is 687 Earth days.

“Aside from the rover (only in the new image), the color and albedo patterns are very similar, so an optically thick layer of dust has not been deposited over the region,” the agency said.

The storm had been described as the most intense ever observed on Mars, with it at one point covering more than 15.8 million square miles, or roughly the area of North America and Russia combined, NASA said in June.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, seen in 2014, has gone into hibernation mode after a global dust storm blocked its solar panels, NASA said.

The rover has operated well beyond its expected longevity on the Red Planet.

NASA will continue its listen for signals from the 14-year-old rover at least into early 2019, CNET reported.

Opportunity has been exploring Mars since 2004, despite it only expected to operate for 90 Martian days. Its twin rover, Spirit, also landed on Mars in 2004 but ceased operations after 2,210 Martian days, according to NASA.

Opportunity’s main mission is to assess the planet’s geology and past habitability at two Martian sites where there is preserved evidence of past and persistent water.

Should Opportunity wake up from its hibernation, it could take several weeks or communication sessions before engineers receive enough information to determine the next course of action, NASA said. The agency compared the rover’s wakeup to coming out of a coma, stating, “It takes time to fully recover.”

The rover’s team will then do a scan of its battery, solar cells, temperature and will attempt to review the amount of dust that may have become caked inside of it.</s>Opportunity, the Mars Exploration Rover (MER), has been spotted in a satellite image. The photo was taken by NASA's HiRISE camera on-board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which is used to monitor the planet and communicate with the rover.

The white box shows a 47 metre-wide area of Mars and Opportunity is in the middle of it.

The rover was recently caught up in a massive dust storm on the red planet. Several of these occurred at the same time blocking out the sun and thus depriving Opportunity of the solar power it needs to operate.

The rover was exploring Mars' Perseverance Valley when the storm started. It's been a little over 100 days since Opportunity last spoke to mission command.

Such events are planned for and NASA was aware of the approaching storm as the solar panels were generating less and less power as it grew in intensity. Opportunity was put into low power mode to conserve energy.

In this mode the rover wakes for its morning update from mission command and then takes a nap. In the afternoon it uses its onboard camera to check the atmosphere and sends an update to the MRO, it then goes back to sleep.

The rover then wakes on the next day - a Martian day, or sol, is 24 hours and 39 minutes - for further updates.

NASA put Opportunity into this low power mode on June 7. However the storm's intensity increased and that caused Opportunity experience a low power fault and the rover has been silent since.

Because it hasn't heard from Earth in some time the rover will now be in a mode called "uploss". This means it will try to communicate with home in a variety of different ways. NASA uses the deep space network to listen for signs it's operating.

NASA is also sending signals that will make the rover beep if it does happen to wake up. Initially it was doing this three times per week, it has since started transmitting signals multiple times per day.

All of the safety procedures are designed to protect the rover and prevent the onboard batteries from discharging too much. If Opportunity gets too cold then it could permanently disable it and end the mission.

This is because the on-board batteries that are charged by the solar panels need to be kept warm or they may stop functioning properly, which could stop the rover operating correctly.

However NASA is confident that Opportunity has a chance of surviving this storm. For one thing the rover's batteries are in generally good health, perhaps surprising for a nearly 15-year-old machine.

Additionally, NASA says that dust storms warm the planet, which should mean the rover isn't getting too cold.

Although the rover is now in quite a deep sleep and it may not know what time it is (crucial for scheduling wakeups) the backup systems will be waiting for the solar panels to generate enough power to ping earth.

If the rover does signal earth it's likely to take many weeks to troubleshoot it and restart all its systems.

NASA will continue to send signals to Opportunity until January 2019. If it hasn't heard back from the rover by then it's unlikely it will again.</s>It’s been more than three months since the Opportunity rover went silent on Mars after a massive dust storm engulfed the entire red planet, darkening the Martian skies and rendering the robot unable to charge its solar-powered batteries.

But although NASA hasn’t heard from the 14-year-old robot — endearingly dubbed Oppy — in quite a long time, the space agency still has eyes on the silent rover and has recently managed to capture a new photo of its location on Mars.

Last week, Oppy was spotted by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has been orbiting the red planet for 12 years. During the last few months, the MRO has monitored the massive dust storm on Mars while orbiting the planet, waiting for the haze to subside so it could photograph the Martian surface again.

On September 20, the orbiter caught sight of the Opportunity rover on the slopes of Perseverance Valley, where the robot has been stranded since early June. As the Inquisitr previously reported, Oppy was trekking down the valley, located on the western rim of the Endeavour Crater, when the monster dust storm hit Mars in late May.

With the skies finally clearing over the Martian landscape, the MRO was able to snap a photo of the area from a distance of about 166 miles (267 kilometers) above Mars, marking the whereabouts of the still-silent Opportunity rover.

Unveiled by NASA on September 25, the snapshot pinpoints Oppy’s location inside a white square that represents “a 154-foot-wide (47-meter-wide) area centered on the rover,” the space agency noted in the photo release.

“NASA’s Opportunity rover appears as a blip in the center of this square. This image taken by HiRISE, a high-resolution camera onboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the dust storm over Perseverance Valley has substantially cleared,” stated NASA officials.

According to the space agency, the rover’s team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has been trying to contact Oppy ever since the Martian dust storm began to abate, in the hopes that the hibernating robot would awaken from its slumber and resume science operations.

Last month, NASA explained that the Opportunity rover would stand a better chance of waking up and recharging its batteries if the sun-blocking dust particles in the Martian atmosphere dropped to a tau level below 2.0, the Inquisitr reported at the time.

On the day the new MRO photo was taken, the orbiter’s MARCI wide-angle camera estimated a tau measurement of about 1.3. This means that about 25 percent of the direct sunlight is now reaching the Martian surface, specified NASA.

“A key unknown is how much dust has fallen on the solar arrays. The HiRISE image shows some reddening of the surrounding area, suggesting dust fallout, but it is not possible to determine how much dust is on the arrays themselves,” explained the space agency.
NASA's Opportunity rover is spotted on satellite imagery three months after it went silent during a Martian dust storm.