Endeavour, Finally!
It was announced yesterday that the little rover that could, Opportunity, finally reached Endeavour crater. The actual event apparently took place the day before when, according to the update that was just posted, a drive of 62 meters took the resilient rover to the rim of the giant crater which it had been driving towards for just about two years and ten months, during which it covered some 21 kilometers. The plan ahead is to analyze the rocks found in the area for as long as possible, particularly looking for evidence that water remained on the surface of Mars for long enough at some point in the past for life to potentially develop.
This is something I was hoping to be able to point out last week, when I also pointed out Juno’s launch, instead of adding yet another short post about one specific potential achievement in the field of space exploration. I was basing that “best case” estimate on the previous update placing the rover only 120 meters from the destination on August 4, which is a distance that she is capable of covering in a single day, even if she’s currently driving backwards in order to put less strain on a wheel that has been causing some concern. However, it was unlikely to happen quite so soon, seeing as the terrain close to a giant crater’s rim wouldn’t exactly be the best suited for long and straight drives and the team was likely to be extremely careful either way, not risking any problems right now at the end.
As a quick reminder, we’re talking about a rover that landed on Mars at the start of 2004, meant to cover no more than one kilometer and operate for three months, but which has so far continued operating for more than seven and a half years, covering 34.5 kilometers and returning an amount of data not even dreamed of at the start of the mission. That’s like a car guaranteed to function for five years or 100000 kilometers still working after 150 years and 3.45 million kilometers covered, with no maintenance or repairs whatsoever! And it’s certainly not over yet. The team does have several reasons for concern regarding the health of some of Opportunity’s components, but so far everything can be mitigated with care and patience, none of the potential issues being any threat to the actual survival of the rover.
Considering the sheer size of this crater and the amount of science that can be done there, Opportunity could well spend several years analyzing it, making it highly unlikely that she’ll ever leave it. However, simply getting there is already a tremendous achievement which needs to be added to an already long list, and if she will be able to survive until Curiosity will join her on the surface, which at this point seems quite likely, the achievement will be even greater. At this point, any further observations made by the rover are really just a bonus, but I’m sure they will nevertheless prove to be a very significant bonus.
Once again, Opportunity and her now “deceased” twin, Spirit, are proof of what we humans are capable of when we really try. This is just yet another piece of evidence, if any more were needed, in favor of the idea that we need to put far more effort, not to mention funding, into space exploration, in order to actually achieve what we already know we could achieve… Not to mention that, seeing as the fact that Opportunity is powered by solar panels instead of a nuclear power supply allowed the mission to be extended so much, this is also a very strong argument in favor of using safe and renewable energy here on Earth…
