NASA's aging Mars Opportunity rover is getting forgetful
PASADENA, Calif. -- It began life as a bouncing baby. When the rover dropped onto Mars in 2004 it was designed to explore the Red Planet for 90 days. Eleven years later it's still roaming across Mars, sending back photos, long after it was expected to retire.
"We have a senior rover," John Callas, project manager for Opportunity. "I mean, it's in very good health but it does have some symptoms of age."
Callas is now dealing with a familiar symptom of aging: the Rover is having trouble remembering.
"The flash memory, the memory that we use to store the images on the rover, is wearing out on the rover on Mars, on Opportunity," Callas told me.
At NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Rebekah Sosland is working on a fix for Opportunity's fading memory.
"She's old, she's almost 11-years-old," Rebekah Sosland told me.
Sosland, 25, is young. She's flight director for Opportunity. The rover's mission should have ended when Sosland was in the 8th grade.
"I never thought in a million years that I would have the opportunity to work on this project," said Sosland.
In what NASA calls the "Mars Yard," Sosland is working with Opportunity's earth-based twin, testing ways to seal off the failing memory and keep the Rover working.
"Every single day that we have with her is one more treasured day that we can use to explore the surface of Mars," said Sosland.
Opportunity's forgetfulness is a reminder that nothing lasts forever, especially on a planet that has massive dust storms and extreme temperatures.
"A car or a laptop wouldn't last a day on the surface of Mars," explained Callas.
But Opportunity has lasted, and with a little help from its friends back on earth its long journey may not be over yet.
