Why Nasa has lost contact with its Opportunity rover on Mars

‘Unprecedented’ dust storm has engulfed the
red planet for past two weeks

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The little robot, which has been on Mars since the start of
2004, requires sunlight to charge its batteries, The Independent reports. But with the vast dust
storm covering about a quarter of the planet for the past two
weeks, the rover has run out of power.

Although the storm is only expected to last for a few days, it
could be months until the machine’s solar panels absorb enough
energy to begin transmitting data back to Earth, the news site
adds. 

“By no means are we out of the woods here,” Opportunity
project manager John Callas said yesterday. “This storm is
threatening and we don’t know how long it will last, and we don’t
know what the environment will be like once it clears.”

Mission controllers at the US space agency’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, lost contact
with the rover on Tuesday evening, according to The Guardian. 

The storm was first detected by Nasa on 30 May, but grew
at an extraordinary rate and quickly engulfed the rover in thick
clouds of dust. 

Nasa’s far newer Mars rover, called Curiosity, is powered
by a nuclear reactor and therefore does not need sunlight to stay
powered up. 

Despite its current power outage, the Opportunity rover has more
than exceeded initial expectations during its 14-year stint on the
red planet. 

According to the BBC, the droid was only designed to work for 90 days
yet is still going, although it can only move in reverse and its
robotic arm, used to examine rocks, is “arthritic”.

Prior to the storm, Opportunity had been exploring the
Perseverance Valley on the western rim of Mars, in a bid to work
out whether the valley was formed by water or
wind. 

Nasa hopes to continue the mission when, or if, it regains
contact with the robot.