Last Martian summer, a dust storm blocked out the sun and grew until it enveloped the entire Red Planet. That left the Opportunity rover deprived of solar power and NASA lost contact with the robot. Now, after six months without a response, NASA is making a new, and potentially their last, effort to restore contact with the rover.
The last contact that Opportunity had with Earth was on June 10, 2018, in the midst of the global dust storm. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced Jan. 25 that it would transmit new commands to the rover in an attempt to restore contact. The team at JPL hopes that this transmission will address a set of (unlikely) reasons that could be keeping the rover from contacting Earth. These new efforts are in addition to the months of transmissions that have been sent to the rover in the hopes of receiving a ...
