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Saturday, July 7, the American robot Opportunity, launched in 2003, will celebrate its 15th anniversary from Mars. A mission of exceptional longevity for this space mission now threatened by a storm of dust.
Mid-June, the news had saddened the small world of "Martians", science and planet Mars enthusiasts. The US Space Agency, NASA, announced that its robot Opportunity was caught in a huge storm on the red planet. Because if the sky is a bright blue in the summer, the Mars is like a vacuum tank at the moment.
A problem for solar panels
Since June 19, a storm of dust, from eroded Martian rocks, has covered the entire planet. " The atmosphere of Mars is much more tenuous than that of the Earth but still sufficient to cause very fine particle winds, of the order of one micron ", explains Thierry Fouchet, researcher at the Observatory of Paris
On Mars, bursts can be very localized or, on the contrary, cover the whole planet as it is the case currently. Random phenomena, these storms are recurring and the last one took place in 2007. At the time, Opportunity had already had to stand by lack of energy, because the robot works thanks to solar panels (1). The latter are covered with a layer of red dust that prevents the capture of light rays. " During these storms, the atmosphere becomes almost opaque and the brightness drops a lot " warns Thierry Fouchet
Panorama of the Crater on Mars, taken by the robot Curiosity, during the dust storm in June 2018. / NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
in temporary standby
« This dust bathes the planet like talc, it slips everywhere and can seize the mechanisms and obscure the optical sensors warns Sylvestre Maurice, of the Institute of research in astrophysics and planetology (IRAP). But US teams are not worried about the future of Opportunity. »
The only unknown is the re-ignition of the robot. " Normally, the teams wake up the rover when the transmission satellite is placed so as to ensure communication indicates his colleague Olivier Gasnault. There, Opportunity will wake up alone at regular intervals, thanks to an internal clock, to take stock and determine if enough energy is available. But there is nothing to indicate that this short period of awakening will correspond with that where communications will be possible. "
A distance traveled equivalent to a marathon
Like a child who would call through a baby monitor set to a frequency different from that of the parents, Opportunity could well remain without a long time interlocutor. For the time being, no one knows how long this storm will last, but the scientists plan to take advantage of it to study the meteorological mechanisms of Mars.
With 45 kilometers traveled, Opportunity has already largely fulfilled its mission finding traces of the past presence of water on the red planet. Originally, the 185 kg robot had to operate 90 floors, a floor being the equivalent of a day on Mars. He will celebrate Saturday his 5 138 e ground.
The robot Opportunity beats a distance record on a celestial body
Audrey Dufour
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