Opportunity
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Amazon's Opportunity Mars rover documentary hits Prime Video on November 23rd
More than a year after it was first announced, Amazon has shared a trailer for Good Night Oppy.
Amazon's 'Good Night Oppy' will tell the story of NASA's Opportunity Mars rover
With Perseverance capturing the imagination of people the world over, Amazon plans to tell the story of one of its predecessors.
NASA releases the final panorama that Opportunity took on Mars
Before a Martian dust storm took out Opportunity in June 2018, the rover was able to capture hundreds of images that NASA has now released as a panorama. The 360-degree photo is composed of 354 images overall, taken by the rover's Panoramic Camera (Pancam) from May 13th through June 10th. It shows the vehicle's final resting place in Perseverance Valley located in Endurance Crater's western rim. The rover lost touch with NASA in June after it reported the approaching storm that ultimately covered its solar panels with dust and rocks.
NASA admits the Mars Opportunity rover is dead
If you're a fan of Mars exploration, you're probably in mourning right now. NASA's Opportunity rover has effectively been declared dead after the agency's last attempt to contact the storm-struck rover was met with silence. Officials held a press conference at 2PM ET to discuss the outcome, and as expected NASA confirmed that it is saying goodbye to Opportunity. The machine doesn't stand a chance if it doesn't have power -- Martian winter is coming, and Opportunity needs working heaters to survive the chilly conditions.
NASA images show Martian dust storms engulfing the entire planet
Martian dust storms can make nasty sand devils look cute, and every six to eight years, they can grow large enough to engulf the whole planet. Global-scale storms happen when several smaller ones kick up enough dust to envelope the planet's surface. But since they only occur every once in a while, scientists still don't know much about them, including why they form and how exactly they evolve. They'll soon have a treasure trove of data to work with, though, now that NASA'S Martian probes have trained their eyes on a massive storm that's currently covering the planet with cloud and haze.
Opportunity rover stops responding during Mars dust storm
Things have gone from bad to worse for the Opportunity rover now that it's caught up in a massive Mars dust storm. In an update, NASA revealed that Opportunity didn't respond to a contact attempt. The team now assumes the robotic explorer's batteries have reached a critically low level, and that it's currently in a low power fault mode that shuts off everything but the mission clock. Outside of waking up to check power levels, the rover will stay in this mode unless its solar panels can restore enough energy.
Mars Opportunity rover is in danger of dying from a dust storm
The Mars Opportunity rover is caught in a dust storm, and the craft is hunkered down doing its best to survive the intensifying weather. The storm was first detected on Friday June 1st by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, at which point the rover's team was notified because of the weather event's proximity to Opportunity. The rover uses solar panels, so a dust storm could have an extremely negative impact on Opportunity's power levels and its batteries.
NASA’s Opportunity rover sees its 5,000th day on Mars
This weekend, NASA's Opportunity rover spent its 5,000th day on Mars. While that is a feat in and of itself, it's even more impressive when you consider that it was only planned to last 90 Martian days, or sols. Both Opportunity and its companion rover Spirit were launched towards Mars in 2003, landing on two different parts of the planet in January 2004. Neither were expected to make it through Mars' harsh winter though, which lasts about twice as long as ours and is severely lacking in light, but NASA's team discovered that pointing the rovers towards the north and towards the sun was enough to keep them powered through the winter. Further, making sure the rovers were on north-facing slopes each winter helped to keep them going for years longer than they were ever intended to function.
NASA's Opportunity rover celebrates 12th anniversary on Mars
When the Opportunity made its Mars landing on January 24th, 2004, NASA believed the rover would only last about 90 days, due to the Red Planet's dusty nature. But, thanks to unexpected winds which kept Opportunity's solar panels clean, that obviously never happened. This week, the aging rover celebrated 12 years on Mars, at least in terms of Earth time -- one Martian year is equivalent to roughly 1.9 of ours.
How NASA plans to deal with Opportunity rover's failing flash memory
Just like your favorite USB flash drive, the memory on NASA's Opportunity rover is beginning to degrade after more than a decade on Mars. That's led to bouts of "amnesia" where the rover ends up losing data and constantly resets, both of which make any sort of serious scientific work difficult. NASA's already tried reformatting Opportunity to deal with the problem (just like the Spirit rover five years ago), but after a slight communications blackout over Christmas, the agency is now preparing a software update that will prevent the rover from using a specific memory bank entirely. That'll hopefully put a stop to Opportunity's forgetfulness, since it will only be storing data on properly functioning memory, reports Discovery News.
Opportunity rover is getting reformatted after ten years on Mars
NASA's ironman Mars rover Opportunity, like your five-year-old PC, is about to get reformatted. Problems have been causing the aging vehicle to reboot and scientists suspect that worn-out cells in the flash memory are to blame. Opportunity's been running for 10 years despite an expected mission life of three months, so even having such problems is a bonus -- and its now-defunct twin, Spirit, had a similar procedure in 2009. Scientists will back up the rover's memory, then send a format command to prevent the bad cells from being accessed. They'll use a slower-than-normal data rate to reinstall the software, since Mars is currently 212 million miles away and the signal will take 11.2 minutes just to reach it. NASA said that Martian winds have kept the rover's solar panels surprisingly clean since it hit the ground rolling in 2004 (see the video below). As the picture above from August 10th shows, it's still doing science and exploration like a boss.
Opportunity rover breaks record for longest distance driven off-Earth
When the Opportunity rover landed on the red planet in 2004, NASA only intended to drive it for about 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) within 90 Martian days. But the rover turned out to be a hardy Mars explorer, and on its 10th year on the planet, it has finally broken the record for the longest distance a vehicle has driven outside Earth. The Opportunity has recently accrued 25.01 miles of driving on another world, dethroning Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 rover, which drove 24.2 miles on the moon in 1973. While that's a huge accomplishment for a vehicle that was never supposed to last for more than year, Mars Exploration Rover Manager John Callas says what truly matters is "not how many miles the rover has racked up, but how much exploration and discovery we have accomplished over that distance." So, what's next for this tough ole machine? Not retirement, that's for sure. NASA's hoping it still has what it takes to drive just a bit further and reach the next major investigation site more than a mile from where it is today.
Opportunity breaks 40-year old NASA space-drive record, reminds Curiosity who's boss
If you thought current media-darling Curiosity is where all the martian action is right now, think again. Its elder sibling, Opportunity, is still rolling up there too. In fact, it's just wheeled its way into a little page of NASA history: the longest distance one of its vehicles has traveled on a body beyond Earth. A recent short (by our standards) trip of 263 feet took its total to 22.22 miles covered on Mars' surface since landing in January 2004. The previous title holder was a Lunar Rover, part of the Apollo 17 mission over 40 years ago, that covered (if you hadn't guessed) 22.21 miles. Opportunity's not beat the world galaxy record though. That honor goes to the Soviet Lunokhod rover, which totted up a total of 23 lunar-based miles back in 1973. In relative terms, Curiosity's barely stretched its legs.
NASA abandons Mars rover Spirit, chooses to remember the good times
More than a year after it first lost contact with its Mars rover Spirit, NASA has finally decided to throw in the towel. Yesterday, the agency confirmed that it will end all planned communications with the robot on May 25th, effectively ending the craft's seven-year mission. NASA was hoping that the approaching Martian spring would allow the Spirit to recharge its solar panels and re-establish radio contact, but it now appears that the craft sustained irreparable damage last winter, when it was forced to endure brutally cold temperatures. NASA executive David Lavery, however, says the rover team will remember the Spirit more for its achievements than its slow demise: "I think we'll all sit around and have a sip of Guinness and reminisce about when Spirit was a wee small little rover and look back at the accomplishments and successes rover had over its entire lifetime." So the Spirit's spirit will live on, but what about NASA's mission to Mars? Well, the Opportunity is still in good health and, later this year, will be joined by the next-generation, nuclear-powered rover Curiosity, which will investigate whether or not Mars ever supported life forms. Meanwhile, NASA's network of orbiting spacecraft will continue to passively listen for signals from the Spirit, just in case it miraculously comes back to life. Full PR after the break.
Robot Hall of Fame expands to include Da Vinci, Terminator, Roomba
Forget those "sporting" Halls of Fame -- the real HOF is right here. Since 2003, the Robot Hall of Fame has been honoring robots and creators at an exhibit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and now we're seeing the latest handful of noteworthy creatures take their rightful place in history. For those unaware, the Robot HOF is maintained by Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Science Center, and an international jury of researchers, writers, and designers has just selected five new bots to join the cast: Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the T-800 Terminator (yes, that Terminator), the Da Vinci surgical system, iRobot's Roomba and 'Huey, Dewey, and Louie' from the 1972 sci-fi flick Silent Running. Could you have imagined a more fitting five? If so, sound off below!
Rolando's Simon Oliver in the Daily Mail
The Daily Mail has reported the story of our friend Simon Oliver, creator of Rolando (whom we interviewed quite a while ago when the game originally came out). Apparently things have worked out very well for him -- the game has sold 700,000 copies so far, Oliver's set to be a millionaire, and he's now, as he says, the head of a game studio that already has a hit under its belt. Very impressive (too bad they still call him a geek).It's stories like this that are pushing the little App Store bubble we've got going nowadays -- every investor with money to spare (not as many as usual, given the current economy) is happy to sink it into releases for the iPhone, and while there is plenty of money being made, not every developer ends up like Oliver (let's not forget he had a quality product in the first place).But there is some good news here: without the App Store and the iPhone platform, this never would have happened. Say what you want about Apple's release policies or their initial "no SDK" choice, but with the iPhone, they've brought development and distribution down to anyone who can dream it.
Mars rovers mark off five years of tireless servitude to humanity, boredom
NASA's Spirit rover landed on Mars on January 3rd, 2004, with Opportunity joining up 21 days later, and both are going strong five years later. Still no sign of Don Cheadle.
2008 Worlds in Motion Summit schedule announced
The 2008 Worlds in Motion Summit schedule has been announced, along with a synopsis of this year's speeches and panels. The conference on virtual worlds and social gaming will be held on September 16th and 17th, during the Austin Game Developers Conference.Worlds in Motion bills the 2008 Summit as a conference geared toward those who wish to better understand the business opportunities offered in the expanding social game networking space, and who plan to leverage their content and brands into interactive online worlds. Early bird registration ends July 31st; details can be found at the Austin GDC homepage. Read on after the jump for highlights of the upcoming 2008 Worlds in Motion Summit.
NASA won't dampen exploratory spirit of Mars rovers
Back in November, we knew things weren't looking up for the twin Mars rovers, but it seems that both Spirit and Opportunity will still be doing their respective thangs after a letter foreshadowing their doom was rescinded. Reportedly, the entity was tasked to slash $4 million from the project's budget just yesterday, which would have forced Spirit into hibernation and limited Opportunity's opportunities by mandating that commands be sent up every other day (versus everyday now). As it stands, NASA has issued a confirmation that neither creature will be affected, but given the apparent belt-tightening, we're curious as to whether Scarecrow will still see liftoff next year.[Via Physorg]
DS Daily: Unfulfilled potential
The DS has a myriad of unique features, and as developers quickly learned, it isn't necessarily wise to throw them all into a game as cheap gimmicks. Many titles have used these features as essential elements of gameplay (see: Trauma Center, Kirby's Canvas Curse), but in many cases, we can't help but feel that developers are missing out on the some of the opportunities afforded them by the DS.Where is our hockey game, in which the stylus is used as a mini-hockey stick to accurately handle the puck? Why don't games with magically-based battle systems allow you to shout a short incantation to activate a spell? Lost Magic had a player draw runes, which was creative, but we've been wanting to bust out dramatic Latin phrases for quite some time.Do you have any ideas that you think developers should implement? Has the true potential of the DS been fully reached? Only time (and your comments) will tell.
