Two weeks without rover news Opportunity on March

The thick dust storm that has spread since mid-June by March silences the rover Opportunity exploring in the hemisphere South of the Red Planet since 2004. [19659002] "We have not heard from the rover for a few weeks," says Ray Arvidson of the University of Washington in St. Louis, deputy principal investigator of the mission Mars Exploration Rovers of NASA.

The reduction of solar energy absorbed by solar panels because of the poor daylight forced to suspend scientific activities, then the rover stopped sending signals to the control of the mission on Earth. The curiosity, the other robot on Mars, does not suffer from this problem because it is powered by nuclear energy.

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The image was captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

Opportunity sailed and processed with Mars since landing in Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004. But the last image of the rover received on Earth was from its panoramic camera, during Sol 5111, there is more than 20 martian days.

most likely Opportunity is in a low power mode "in which the receiver wakes up, checks its power and, if it is too weak, goes back to sleep," Arvidson told Inside Outer Space .

"At some point, when the storm soothes, Opportunity should wake up, decide that it has enough energy to transmit a low gain antenna signal that says "I'm awake and good, but I'm going back to sleep." This will happen when the storm pbades, until she decides to return to a complete operation, "adds Arvidson.

Article [19659004] It is the most sophisticated that the space agency has built and its postponement is due to human errors

< img clbad = "imagen_lateral" src = "http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/sites/default/files/styles/f22-210×334/public/2018/06/28/james_webb_telescopio.jpg?itok=Lmb_cCBp" alt = "NASA delays until 2021 the launch of the James Webb telescope [19659008]" We listened, but there is still no low-gain communications, and the storm continues to its maximum area, "says Arvidson.

"The storm has become global and it is still at its peak. ", Adds Jim Rice, head of the Mars Exploration Rover geology team at the March Space Flight Facility of Arizona State University. "I'm still sure we will survive this."

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