THE MARS “OPPORTUNITY & “SPIRIT” MISSION

What is it? The Mars “Opportunity” and “Spirit” were 2 robotic rovers that

were launched on mars in 2004. The “Spirit” was launched June 10th 2003, just 3 weeks before

the Opportunity was launched.

Purpose The purpose of the Mars “Rovers” was to land on Mars’ surface,

and to search for a variety of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity.

Also to search for iron-containing minerals, to identify and to find relative amounts of specific mineral types that contain water or were formed in water, such as iron-bearing carbonates.

Contributors/Designing The “Rovers” and “Opportunity’s” hardware was designed just

like a computer: 20 MHz RAD6000 CPU with 128 MB of DRAM, 3 MB of EEPROM,

and 256 MB of onboard flash memory. The rovers’ names were chosen by a students in a competition

organized by NASA.

Contributors/Designing The rovers were equipped with a total of 8 cameras each. These cameras’ were used for navigation, processing, zooming, and

identifying rock types. There was also an HD camera for 1024-pixel by 1024-pixel images,

installed on each of these rovers.

Design

Findings Both of these rovers provided evidence in support of the

mission's primary goals. In addition to investigating the "water hypothesis", the rovers

have also obtained astronomical observations and atmospheric data.

Benefits Risks

- New rock species - Performing memory

- Possibility of life updates was a challenge

on other planets - The rovers’ bodies weren’t

- Finding traces of built too strongly.

water in rocks

The Future On January 4, 2007, both rovers received new software. The update

allowed the rovers to be more smarter and waste less time in the finding of rocks in space.

Since its’ arrival in 2004 the “Opportunity” has travelled a total of 22.22 miles, giving it the record of the most distance travelled by an unmanned vehicle not on Earth.

Loss of A Friend

The Twin rover “Spirit” sent 3 weeks before the “Opportunity went dead in March 2010.

Attempts to regain contact with the spirit continued until

May 25th 2011. NASA then officially announced the Spirit was dead due

to excessively cold internal temperature in Mars’ harsh climate.

The Opportunity Today In August 2013 the “Opportunity” started to study the

area of contact between a rock layer formed in wet conditions long ago.

Pictures

Bibliography http://www.bing.com/?FORM=Z9FD1

https://www.google.com

http://www.space.com/20396-mars-rover-curiosity-big-discoveries.html

http://space.about.com/od/spacemissions/p/opportunymiss.htm

http://www.slashgear.com/mars-rover-opportunity-breaks-space-driving-distance-record-17282586/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_and_Opportunity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_rover

Music By: thebeatbuff

Questions