A massive dust storm on Mars has forced NASA to temporarily suspend operations of its Opportunity rover.

NASA first caught wind of the dust storm when its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected traces of the emerging weather system on June 1. Within a few days, the storm exploded in size, and it now covers an area measuring 7 million square miles (18 million square kilometers), which is larger than North America. NASA’s Opportunity rover is currently within the affected region, prompting mission controllers to suspend normal operations as the rover waits out the storm.

The situation is actually quite perilous. The dust storm (not to be confused with a sandstorm) is raising atmospheric opacity, or “tau,” blocking out light from the Sun, so it’s much darker at the surface than usual. On June 7, the rover’s power levels dropped appreciably. Opportunity uses solar panels to recharge its batteries, so NASA had little choice but to put the rover into a kind of hibernation mode to preserve energy. NASA is having to manage a delicate balance, making sure the rover doesn’t run out of energy while maintaining its power-hungry survival heaters—a system that protects the rover’s batteries from freezing in the extreme cold.

“It’s not unlike running a car in the winter so that the cold doesn’t sap its battery charge,” NASA writes in a release. “There is a risk to the rover if the storm persists for too long and Opportunity gets too cold while waiting for the skies to clear.”

This isn’t the first time Opportunity has dealt with dust storm since it arrived on Mars in January 2004. In 2007, the rover rode out a similar storm that lasted for two weeks. Like now, the rover was put into a hibernation mode, and it managed to survive the ordeal. The same could not be said for Opportunity’s companion probe, Mars Spirit, which failed completely after a dust storm in 2008.

The current dust storm seems to be worse than the one in 2007 in terms of dimming. The 2007 storm produced a tau value of 5.5, while the current storm has already produced a tau of 10.8. The good news is that Opportunity seems to be okay so far. The probe sent a hello message to NASA engineers yesterday morning—an encouraging sign given the storm’s increasing intensity. NASA will carefully monitor Opportunity’s power levels as the storm continues.

The temperature in Perseverance Valley, the rover’s current location, is around -20 degrees F (-29 degrees C). Counterintuitively, dust storms may limit the extreme temperature swings experienced on Mars. The swirling dust absorbs heat, raising the temperature at the surface.

Dust storms are infrequent on Mars, but they do arise from time to time. These systems often emerge without warning and escalate quickly, lasting anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. During summer in the south, the Sun warms dust particles, causing them to rise up higher into the sky. This produces more wind, which kicks up even more dust, creating a feedback loop.

In case you’re wondering, NASA’s Curiosity rover is nowhere near Opportunity and is not currently threatened by the dust storm. The two probes are about 5,000 miles (8,200 km) apart and on practically opposite sides of the planet. It’s lonely on Mars, but as this storm menaces Opportunity, the Red Planet suddenly seems even lonelier. </s> NASA has been forced to temporarily pause operations of its Opportunity rover as it continues to be rocked by an intense dust storm on Mars.

The agency has described the dust storm as being larger than the entire continent of North America and so powerful that it's blocking out the sun.

That's bad news for the Opportunity rover, which uses solar power to charge its internal battery.

Now, NASA engineers are waiting to see if the Opportunity rover will be able to weather the storm.

Many have said conditions have worsened so much that it almost seems as if day has turned into night on the red planet.

The agency received transmission from the rover on Sunday morning, which it said was 'a positive sign despite the worsening dust storm.'

Still, it intends to commission more antenna coverage from NASA's DeepSpace Network, which supports the agency's deep space probes.

For the time being, NASA has temporarily shut down any scientific operations, which means turning off most instruments attached to the spacecraft.

Opportunity will work to recharge itself and achieve transmissions with engineers back on land communicating its state and showing the progress of the storm.

Data has shown that the rover still has enough battery charge to communicate with controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the agency said.

The rover could soon dip into its battery reserves and, not long after, it may be unable to communicate with engineers.

It will be balancing low levels of battery charge and sub-freezing temperatures.

Specifically, the data on Sunday showed that the rover's temperature was at about minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Heat is 'vitally important' to keeping the spacecraft alive, but also consumes more battery power.

The rover can perform activities or call upon its reserve heaters to warm itself up, but that also draws on battery power.

Opportunity is said to be generating the lowest amount of power its ever collected on Mars, a source close to the situation told The Verge.

So in other words, it's stuck in a pretty precarious situation.

'Sunday's transmission was especially good news considering the dust storm has intensified in the past several days,' NASA said.

'A dark, perpetual night has settled over the rover's location in Mars' Perseverance Valley.'

The dust storm's atmospheric opacity, or the 'veil of dust' that can blot out sunlight, is now a lot worse than a 2007 storm that Opportunity experienced on Mars.

NASA says the previous storm had an opacity level, or tau, above 5.5, while this new storm had an estimated tau of 10.8 as of Sunday morning.

Engineers will closely monitor the rover's power levels throughout the week, the agency says.

NASA first became aware of the storm on June 1 when its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter detected a weather system.

Once they realized it would soon approach Opportunity, NASA began preparing 'contingency plans.'

The storm formed above the rover beginning on June 3 and has gotten much worse since then.

'In a matter of days, the storm had ballooned,' NASA explained.

'It now spans more than 7 million square miles -- an area greater than North America -- and includes Opportunity's current location at Perseverance Valley.'

However, NASA has in no way lost hope for the Opportunity rover just yet.

A 'saving grace' of dust storms is that they can end up limiting the extreme temperature swings customary on Mars' surface, the agency said.

Additionally, Opportunity has already exceeded NASA's expectations in many ways.

'The rover has proved hardier than expected by lasting nearly 15 years, despite being designed for a 90-day mission,' the agency said. </s> A massive dust storm on Mars has sidelined NASA's Opportunity rover, stalling the robot's science work as it waits out the still-growing tempest.

The Martian dust storm was first spotted from space by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA officials said.

"As soon as the orbiter team saw how close the storm was to Opportunity, they notified the rover's team to begin preparing contingency plans," NASA officials said in a statement. "In a matter of days, the storm had ballooned."

As of Friday, the storm covered more than 7 million square miles of Mars, according to NASA. That's an area larger than all of North America on Earth.

"Full dust storms like this one are not surprising, but are infrequent," NASA officials said in the statement. "They can crop up suddenly but last weeks, even months."

The area blanketed by the dust storm includes Perseverance Valley, Opportunity's current home on the vast Martian plains of Meridiani Planum.

Opportunity has been exploring Mars since 2004, but it runs on solar power. With the dust storm clogging up the sky, the amount of sunlight the rover can use to recharge has dropped. NASA compared the conditions to "an extremely smoggy day that blots out sunlight."

By Wednesday, Opportunity's power levels saw a major drop, forcing the rover to stop all science to conserve power. If the storm lasts too long, the main concern will be the Martian cold, a danger Opportunity has faced in the past, NASA officials said.

"There is a risk to the rover if the storm persists for too long and Opportunity gets too cold while waiting for the skies to clear," NASA wrote in the statement. Cold is thought to be what killed NASA's Spirit rover, Opportunity's twin, in 2010 after that robot got stuck in the Martian sand.

But Opportunity is a survivor. And it's seen dust storms bigger than the one it's experiencing now.

In 2007, a dust storm on Mars covered the entire planet and forced Opportunity to hunker down for two weeks in a sort of survival-mode of minimal operations. To save power, the rover went days without phoning home to its controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

It was during that 2007 storm that Opportunity's handlers worried about the rover's ability to power its vital survival heaters with the low power levels caused by that dust storm. But Opportunity survived.

In fact, Opportunity has been surviving for 15 years.

The rover (and its twin Spirit) launched separately to Mars in 2003 and landed in January 2004 for what was originally scheduled to be a 90-day mission. But like the dust storm now battering Opportunity, the rover's mission ballooned from 3 months to 15 years, 14 of them on the Martian surface. </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> 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> Dust storms on the red planet crop up suddenly, but don't go away so fast.

A massive Mars dust storm, which has covered an area greater than all of North America, threatens to undo NASA’s work on the red planet, warned scientists.

Dust storms on the red planet are not unusual but remain infrequent. According to Space.com, the dust storm was first spotted earlier this week, and in a matter of days, has ballooned to cover an area of up to 7 million square miles. In the days to come, the dust storm may expand further, having already blanketed the Perseverance Valley, which is where NASA’s Opportunity rover is stationed.

As a result, NASA has had to suspend the duties of the rover, with scientists unsure of how long it would take for Opportunity to start working fully again. On Mars, dust storms can crop up suddenly, NASA said in a statement, but it could take weeks or even months for them to subside.

After NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted the dust storm gathering pace on June 7, its team notified the Opportunity rover team, helping the officials to quickly embark on a contingency plan for the rover.

NASA’s Opportunity has been exploring Mars since 2004, but it functions on solar power. Now that the area it is stationed in — the vast Martian plains of Meridiani Planum — is blanketed in this huge dust storm, the sunlight that Opportunity receives has diminished significantly. This led NASA to compare the situation on the red planet as similar to “an extremely smoggy day that blots out sunlight.”

Its biggest concern remains Opportunity getting too cold as the result of receiving little to no sunlight. If the dust storm lasts long, it could impair the rover thus killing it. This is what is believed to have killed NASA’s Spirit rover after it was stuck in Martian dust in 2010.

“There is a risk to the rover if the storm persists for too long and Opportunity gets too cold while waiting for the skies to clear,” NASA said.

Having said that, scientists hope that Opportunity can sustain the Martian dust storm because it has seen worst days. In 2007, Mars experienced a dust storm which covered the entire planet, forcing Opportunity to sort of couch down for two weeks. During the time, the rover stopped phoning in to NASA to save power, defying NASA scientists who had worried if the rover would be able to power its vital survival heaters with the low power levels caused by that dust storm.

Opportunity, which was designed for a 90-day mission, has survived on Mars for 15 years, and if it can somehow circumvent this massive dust storm as well, it would be a great compliment to its unwavering tenacity. </s> A massive dust storm which engulfed the surface of Mars has knocked out the Opportunity Rover, according to NASA. The US-based space agency has been attempting to re-establish a connection with the remote-controlled robot, which has been up on the planet since 2011. Originally, it was being used to determine whether the surface of Mars would be able to support microbial life, providing clues as to whether it was once inhabited. Some 17 missions have landed on Mars to gather information and samples, and NASA is planning another three in the future.

Will NASA pull the plug on the Opportunity Mars mission? The Opportunity rover has been on Mars’ surface for almost a decade, taking energy from sunlight via built-in solar panels. The dust storm which recently swept Mars’ atmosphere meant it was unable to absorb sunlight, and as a result has gone offline. Officials at NASA have issued hundreds of commands from their base in California, but have so far received no reply.

In their latest update for the rover, NASA said: “No signal from Opportunity has been heard since Sol 5111 (June 10, 2018) during the historic global dust storm. “Opportunity likely experienced a low-power fault, a mission clock fault (the rover has no sense of time) and an up-loss timer fault (loss of contact with Earth causing communication issues). “The team is continuing to listen for the rover over a broad range of times, frequencies and polarisations using the Deep Space Network (DSN) Radio Science Receiver. “Since the loss of signal, over 835 recovery commands have been radiated to the rover.”

Mike Seibert, a former Opportunity flight director has said Opportunity’s unresponsiveness means the end of its landmark mission. He said: “It’s the end of the first great Martian road trip.” However, officials are not looking on the mission with disappointment, instead focussing on the machine’s surprising longevity. Originally, the rovers were expected to be almost disposable, lasting for six months at a time to gather samples and data, but they far outlasted their proposed lifespan. </s> NASA engineers received a transmission from Opportunity on Sunday morning — a positive sign despite the worsening dust storm. Data from the transmission let engineers know the rover still has enough battery charge to communicate with ground controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Science operations remain suspended.

Sunday’s transmission was especially good news considering the dust storm has intensified in the past several days. A dark, perpetual night has settled over the rover’s location in Mars’ Perseverance Valley. The storm’s atmospheric opacity — the veil of dust blowing around, which can blot out sunlight — is now much worse than a 2007 storm that Opportunity weathered. The previous storm had an opacity level, or tau, somewhere above 5.5; this new storm had an estimated tau of 10.8 as of Sunday morning.

Opportunity’s team has requested additional communications coverage from NASA’s Deep Space Network, a global system of antennas that talks to all the agency’s deep space probes.

This latest data transmission showed the rover’s temperature to be about minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 29 degrees Celsius). One saving grace of dust storms is that they can actually limit the extreme temperature swings experienced on the Martian surface. The same swirling dust that blocks out sunlight also absorbs heat, raising the ambient temperature surrounding Opportunity.

Engineers will monitor the rover’s power levels closely in the week to come. The rover needs to balance low levels of charge in its battery with sub-freezing temperatures. Its heaters are vitally important to keeping it alive, but also draw more power from the battery. Likewise, performing certain actions draws on battery power, but can actually expel energy and raise the rover’s temperature.

The rover has proved hardier than expected by lasting nearly 15 years, despite being designed for a 90-day mission.

Science operations for NASA’s Opportunity rover have been temporarily suspended as it waits out a growing dust storm on Mars.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter first detected the storm on Friday, June 1. As soon as the orbiter team saw how close the storm was to Opportunity, they notified the rover’s team to begin preparing contingency plans.

In a matter of days, the storm had ballooned. It now spans more than 7 million square miles (18 million square kilometers) — an area greater than North America — and includes Opportunity’s current location at Perseverance Valley. More importantly, the swirling dust has raised the atmospheric opacity, or “tau,” in the valley in the past few days. This is comparable to an extremely smoggy day that blots out sunlight. The rover uses solar panels to provide power and to recharge its batteries.

Opportunity’s power levels had dropped significantly by Wednesday, June 6, requiring the rover to shift to minimal operations.

This isn’t Opportunity’s first time hunkering down in bad weather: in 2007, a much larger storm covered the planet. That led to two weeks of minimal operations, including several days with no contact from the rover to save power. The project’s management prepared for the possibility that Opportunity couldn’t balance low levels of power with its energy-intensive survival heaters, which protect its batteries from Mars’ extreme cold. It’s not unlike running a car in the winter so that the cold doesn’t sap its battery charge. There is a risk to the rover if the storm persists for too long and Opportunity gets too cold while waiting for the skies to clear.

Ultimately, the storm subsided and Opportunity prevailed. The Martian cold is believed to have resulted in the loss of Spirit, Opportunity’s twin in the Mars Exploration Rover mission, back in 2010. Despite this, both rovers have vastly exceeded expectations: they were only designed to last 90 days each. Opportunity is in its 15th year; the team has operated the rover for more than 50 times longer than originally planned.

Full dust storms like this one are not surprising, but are infrequent. They can crop up suddenly but last weeks, even months. During southern summer, sunlight warms dust particles, lifting them higher into the atmosphere and creating more wind. That wind kicks up yet more dust, creating a feedback loop that NASA scientists still seek to understand.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and two other NASA spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet –Odyssey and MAVEN — routinely support rovers on the ground. </s> 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.
NASA's Opportunity rover is temporarily shut down due to a dust storm.