Latest Opportunity Stories

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA said its Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity placed itself in standby mode during April when the sun was blocking out communication with the Red Planet and Earth. The space agency said mission controllers learned of the changed status on April 27, when they first heard from Opportunity after the blocked communication period. Engineers pumped "fresh commands" into the rover on Monday to get it to resume operations. According to...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA's Opportunity rover is closing in on its 10-year anniversary, and is still performing science missions on the Red Planet, reports the Associated Press. The veteran rover first entered Mars' southern hemisphere on January 24, 2004, a few weeks after its twin rover, Spirit, landed on the opposite side of the planet. Before the media began to have an appetite for Curiosity, Opportunity was the darling rover, touching down on an...

Generation Opportunity: Millennials look to Washington, President Obama for results after four years of economic devastation WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- President Barack Obama will soon take the oath of office for the second time at the 57th Presidential Inauguration. As Mr. Obama puts the final touches on his Inaugural Address and prepares to lay out a vision for the next four years, Generation Opportunity - the nation's leading organization advocating for...

NASA's "Spirit" and "Opportunity" Mars rovers will soon be celebrating five years of memorable missions.The administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California cheered on Spirit's first safe landing on Jan. 3, 2004. Opportunity soon followed 21 days later.However, nobody would have predicted the team would still be operating both rovers in 2009.Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said the American...

A new analysis of Martian soil data led by University of California, Berkeley, geoscientists suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface.The study's conclusion breaks from the more dominant view that the liquid water that once existed during the red planet's infancy came mainly in the form of upwelling groundwater rather than rain.To come up with their...

Two robots the size of golf carts were given 90 days to squeeze as much science as possible from the barren, dust-swept terrain of Mars. After that, scientists expected nothing more from them than death. Nearly four years after their warranties expired, however, the Mars Explorations Rovers (MERs) "Spirit" and "Opportunity" continue to play productively in the red dirt. Spirit celebrates its fourth anniversary of Martian work on Jan. 4, the day it landed in...

After six weeks of hunkering down during raging dust storms that limited solar power, both of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have resumed driving. Opportunity advanced 13.38 meters (44 feet) toward the edge of Victoria Crater on Aug. 21. Mission controllers were taking advantage of gradual clearing of dust from the sky while also taking precautions against buildup of dust settling onto the rover. "Weather and power conditions continue to improve, although very...