Cav's Place

According to the announcement, Dawn had already stopped being able to communicate due to having exhausted its fuel at the time I wrote the previous post, about the end of the Kepler mission, but I guess only the team knew that at the time, or perhaps not even them just yet. They were quick to […]

It was almost three and a half years ago that I was saying it was (probably) time to say goodbye to Kepler, yet while it was indeed the end of the primary mission, the team found a way to allow the spacecraft to continue gathering data starting the following year. It was a different kind […]

It is now over three and a half months since the last contact with Opportunity, but at least the dust storm has cleared enough to allow us to see her again, albeit as just a small dot that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone who wouldn’t know exactly what should be in just that spot. With […]

Was pointing out, a month and a half ago, that three weeks had passed since the last contact with Opportunity and that the more time that passes, the greater the risk that the next report will indicate a failure. Yet the storm continued, so the lack of contact did not, and still does not, indicate […]

Things look bleak, both literally and figuratively, for Opportunity. Of course, they have been for quite some time, the planet-encircling dust storm obviously making the rover’s solar panels unable to generate enough power to keep it awake, but what I find increasingly concerning now is the lack of any additional updates specifically about it in […]