The Martian rover Opportunity, 15 years old now, may have sung it’s last, reports (you may have to consult their archive for June 13, 2018, to see this report in its entirety) Spaceweather. Have you ever wondered how the designers tried to prepare for adverse weather events?
Soon after [the dust storm] appeared on May 31st, it swirled south to envelope Opportunity. Right now, the dust is so thick in Perseverance Valley, day has been turned into night. The solar powered rover is being deprived of the sunlight it needs to charge its batteries.
NASA is now operating under the assumption that the charge in Opportunity’s batteries has dipped below 24 volts and the rover has entered low power fault mode, a condition where all subsystems, except a mission clock, are turned off. The rover’s mission clock is programmed to wake Opportunity at intervals so it can check power levels. If the batteries don’t have enough charge, the rover will put itself back to sleep again.
And how long can it keep doing that, I wonder.
