NASA will continue to try to contact the blocked rover Opportunity



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NASA changed its mind about how much time it remained to try to get in touch with an old robotic vehicle covered by a dust storm on Mars in June that has been down since. .

continue to try, rather than abandoning his efforts sometime this month, as officials had announced late August.

"After a review of the progress of the listening campaign, NASA will continue its current strategy of attempting to contact the rover Opportunity in the foreseeable future," said a statement released Monday on NASA's website. .

"Winds could increase in the next few months at the Opportunity site on Mars, which would drive off the dust from the rover's solar panels.The agency will rebadess the situation starting in January 2019. "The engineers hope that the solar-powered rover will have enough sunlight to automatically launch its own recovery procedures.

His last contact with the Earth took place on June 10th.

Opportunity and his twin, Spirit, are a pair of unmanned robotic vehicles. designed by NASA to travel short distances on the Martian surface and transmit data on conditions on Earth. They landed on Mars in 2003 for a mission that was to last 90 days and extend over 1,000 meters (meters).

Spirit lasted 20 times longer than that. He was stuck in loose soil in 2009 and his mission was officially declared in 2011.

The potential of the mission is multiplied by 60, he has traveled 45 kilometers and has found traces of water on Mars and conditions that might have been appropriate to maintain microbial life.

Rover fans mounted a Twitter campaign under the hashtag #SaveOppy, calling on NASA to keep trying to reach it.

(This article was not modified by Business Standard staff, automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)

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