Questions tagged [opportunity]
Questions regarding the Opportunity rover (a.k.a. Mars Exploration Rover (MER) B), which was launched by NASA in 2003 and landed on Mars in 2004.
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How much memory did the Opportunity rover have (in bytes)? [closed]
How many GB/TB of memory did Opportunity have in total? How much of it was used during the mission?
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Why did Spirit (MER-A) lose a wheel?
I was watching a documentary called Expedition Mars: Spirit and Opportunity (It's really good, I recommend it, you can find it on Disney+) and it said Spirit lost control of its frontmost right side ...
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Why did NASA's Soujourner Mars rover die at the same time as Pathfinder?
The Soujourner rover operated with the Pathfinder lander, but when pathfinder's mission was declared to be completed, the rover's was too. Why?
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Is there any chance that Opportunity survived, but NASA kept pinging it at the wrong time?
In 2018, NASA's beloved little Opportunity (oppy) was declared dead after a dust storm "killed" it. It may still be OK, but when NASA began recovery effort, they pinged oppy when it was ...
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When did Opportunity do its record-breaking traverse? [duplicate]
Based on an article by the Planetary Society, rover Opportunity used to hold the record for longest distance (214 meters) in a single sol. On what (Earth-)date did Opportunity do its longest drive?
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Sources for Mars rover sensor data
Is it possible to get sensor data from past or present martian rovers sent by NASA?
Specifically, I'm looking for accelerometer and wheel torque data from the rovers. I've searched their "...
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Why was a nuclear battery system not used for the Mars Spirit and Opportunity rovers?
The Mars Spirit and Opportunity rovers exceeded expectations by working for many years past the planned 90 day mission. Why was a Nuclear Battery System not used for power generation, instead of ...
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How did Spirit and Opportunity identify ferric sulfate and jarosite on Mars?
In the short BBC video Spain's otherworldly red river, Ricardo Amils, a researcher in Spain's Astrobiology Center says the following (amateur transcription):
Río Tinto is a peculiar place in our ...
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What were Spirit and Opportunities wheels made out of?
I'm doing a report on the mars rovers and am wondering what material did NASA use to construct spirit and opportunity's wheels. Was it aluminium? Rubber? Titanium? Magnesium? I don't know. Can't find ...
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Curiosity landing system versus Spirit/Opportunity's [duplicate]
Spirit/Opportunity used airbags to land while Curiosity had a "carrier" with thrusters and chords - which to me sounds heavier and much more complex, therefore also riskier.
It seems that it would ...
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Why A=2 and B=1 in the call signs for Spirit and Opportunity?
The Martian rover Spirit held the call signs MER-A and MER-2. Opportunity was called MER-B and MER-1. The assignment A=2 seems backwards; logic would suggest A=1. Why is this so?
Based on comments ...
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Do Mars rovers have irises? How do they safely look at the Sun?
This excellent answer by @MarkAdler to the question Opportunity's last tau was 10.8; what does that mean and how is tau defined and measured? explains that Curiosity uses its PanCam to image the Sun's ...
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Opportunity's last tau was 10.8; what does that mean and how is tau defined and measured?
@ahiijny added a direct link to the Sol 5110-5114 MER B Downlink Report. These are the final days that signals were received from Opportunity.
The message "Tau Value is NOT a Typographical Error" ...
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What was the last message Opportunity sent?
Everybody seems to be abuzz with the idea that Opportunity's last transmission was "My battery is low and it's getting dark." Of course, that would be a human interpretation of some sort of ...
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Why do most space probes survive for far longer than they were designed for?
Looking back to Opportunity (Rest In Peace, little friend), it was apparently designed to operate for 90 days but it ended up going for 16 years which is approximately 64 times longer than the ...
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Is there any chance that Opportunity might still recover from the dust storm?
So, with today's announcement, Opportunity was basically declared dead
When the dust storm originally engulfed Opportunity last year, mission scientists were hopeful that they might yet recover the ...
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How did NASA's Deep Space Network encode and broadcast music to Opportunity?
@Ingolifs's answer to the question What was the last message to Opportunity today (13 Feb '19)? quotes ArsTechnica's Opportunity did not answer NASA’s final call, and it’s now lost to us:
Late ...
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What was the last message to Opportunity today (13 Feb '19)?
Several articles have mentioned that the last ever commands were sent to the unresponsive Opportunity rover today by NASA. Now, I know that it wasn't a verbal message, but was there anything digital ...
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Camera costings for Opportunity/Spirit/Curiosity rovers
I'm currently working on a project investigating the practicalities of a Mars Sample Retrieval rover, as part of my qualification. My area of concern is command/control, and I am struggling to find a ...
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Have any systems on any Mars rovers failed (even partially) as a result of a dust storm? (besides loss of solar power)
Have any systems on any Mars rovers failed (even partially) as a result of a dust storm?
There is the obvious problem of loss of solar power, but the failures there are the result of loss of power. ...
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How many memory banks does Opportunity have?
Sparked by the comments to this answer, how many memory banks does Opportunity have? I'm specially interested in the flash memory but any other info is also welcome.
According to this JPL press ...
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What was NASA's "Hack" to improve Opportunity's memory in 2015? Did it help?
The transcript of the 2015 NPR podcast NASA Hopes A Hack Will Overcome Mars Rover's Memory Gap says:
You know how it goes - you're getting a little older, your memory starts to go, you forget where ...
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Is Opportunity still in shape to explore the landing site of the Schiaparelli lander?
According to one of the answers to a question concerning Opportunity, the rover has a top speed of 180 meters per hour (no reference).
Based on daily performances however a reasonable speed estimate ...
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What was the solution to the half-amp the heater on Opportunity was drawing?
I'd recently read Roving Mars by Steven Squyres and in it he talks about how one of the heaters in the arm of the Opportunity Rover was drawing a half-amp over night and it was severely costly to it's ...
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Which images were used primarily for navigation algorithms on the Spirit rover?
I've noticed a lot of variations on the MER image data: we have RDR, EDR, and a whole lot of images that haven't been corrected yet (which appear mostly black in colour). On top of this, in the PDS ...
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Why is Curiosity so light compared to Opportunity?
Look at that:
...and now tell me how comes Opportunity weighs 530kg and Curiosity 900kg.
It looks, like by volume, Curiosity is good 4x larger, if not more. Plus it contains heavyweight RTGs, its ...
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Can either Opportunity or Curiosity explore the state of Spirit?
If you have a rough map of Mars a picture would help, but how far away are the three big rovers on Mars from each other? Is there any possibility of "roadside assistance" on Mars to "unstick" and ...
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What software language was used to program the martian rovers Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity?
What software language was used to program the martian rovers Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity?
Also, how many engineers were involved in writing the software for the rovers?
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Why does Curiosity use an RTG rather than solar (as Spirit and Opportunity do) for power?
Why did Curiosity choose to go with nuclear power? While solar panels have issues with Martian dust, this was a known factor before the 2004 Spirit and Opportunity mission. Why then did the 2004 ...