page_title: Timeline of Opportunity (rover)
section_title: Dust storm
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of Opportunity (rover) / Mission timeline / 2018 / Dust storm
caption_attribution_description: English: Values of the energy production (in Watthours), tau (atmosphere opacity) and the dust factor for the rover Opportunity since landing in 2004. Highlighted are the minimum energy levels in the dust storm of 2007, in the winter time 2010 and at the beginning of the dust storm of 2018. In the second diagram the values of tau are displayed. Highlighted are the max tau in the dust storm of 2007 (4.12) and of the dust storm of 2018 (10.8). The third diagram shows the dust factor.
context_page_description: Opportunity is a robotic rover that was active on the planet Mars from 2004 to 2018. Launched on July 7, 2003, Opportunity landed on Mars' Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004 at 05:05 Ground UTC, three weeks after its twin Spirit, also part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission, touched down on the other side of the planet. While Spirit became immobile in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, Opportunity exceeded its planned 90 sol duration of activity by 16 years, 91 days. Opportunity continued to move, gather scientific observations, and report back to Earth until 2018. What follows is a summary of events during its continuing mission.
  Opportunity started in Eagle crater in 2004, literally landing inside on the crater basin, then it travelled outward making its way to Endurance crater. After this it went to Victoria crater, all the way making many panoramas, measurements, studying rocks and smaller craters, even what are thought to be meteorites. It then traveled to Endeavour crater, where it has been making its way south along the Western rim.
context_section_description: In June 2018, a local dust storm began to develop near Opportunity. The first signs of the 1,000 km (620 mi) distant storm were discovered on June 1, 2018 in photographs by the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). More weather reports from the MRO and the MARCI team indicated a prolonged storm. Although this was, at that time, still far away from the rover, it began to  influence the atmospheric opacity at the rover's location.
  Within days, the storm had spread globally. As a result, plans were developed on June 4 and 5 to prepare for the anticipated lower power supply. Since then, the atmosphere over the rover had worsened further. On June 3, the 5105th Sol, Opportunity's solar panels still generated 468 watt-hours. The atmospheric opacity (called tau value) was about 1.0.
  The power supply dropped to 345 watt hours on June 4 at a tau of 2.1. On June 6, only 133 watt hours were generated, the tau value was estimated at 3.0. Opportunity has not experienced such high tau levels since the last dust storm in 2007, which had an estimated tau value of 5.5. The 2018 storm had an estimated tau value of 10.8 on June 10 and the storm spanned an area of 41 million km² (16 million sq mi) - the approximate area of both North America and Russia combined.
  The rover team made another plan, in which the rover gets only the latest commands at the first sol in the morning and sleeps until the next morning. The rover then wakes up in the afternoon to conduct atmospheric measurements with the Pancam and conduct a brief communication session with the MRO orbiter. However, scientific investigations were discontinued, and the rover entered continuous hibernation on June 12. Although Opportunity rover requires the power generated by solar panels to keep the central electrical components warm, it features a small radioisotope heater unit (RPU) that does not require sunlight to function, and the relatively warm summer weather is not expected to damage the electronic components at night. The winter cold is likely the reason that Opportunity's twin rover Spirit stopped working in 2010.
  Although such dust storms are not surprising, they rarely occur. They can arise within a short time and then persist for weeks to months. During the southern season of summer, the sunlight heats dust particles and brings them higher into the atmosphere. This creates wind, which in turn stirs up more dust. This results in a feedback loop that scientists are still trying to understand, so they are taking an opportunity to study this storm from orbit using the various visible and infrared instruments on the MRO orbiter.
  As of June 10, 2018 the mission for Opportunity was able to extend its 92-day (Earth) mission to over 5250 days. Opportunity took its last image (of an overall total of 228,771 raw images) on June 10, 2018.
  On June 12, 2018, Opportunity entered safe mode as evidenced by its lack of communication. A NASA teleconference about the dust storm was presented on June 13, 2018. Opportunity's team implemented additional communication times from NASA's Deep Space Network to receive up-to-date data from Mars. The data obtained showed that the temperature of the rover had fallen to −29 °C (−20 °F). An advantage of the dust storm is that the temperature differences are not as extreme as they are on the surface of Mars. In addition, the swirled-up dust absorbs heat, thereby increasing the ambient temperature at the location of Opportunity. NASA reported on June 20, 2018 that the dust storm had grown to completely cover the entire planet.
  NASA stated they did not expect to resume communication until after the global dust storm subsided.
caption: Values of the energy production (in Watthours), tau (atmosphere opacity) and the dust factor for the rover Opportunity since landing in 2004.
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