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The US NASA space agency is reviving Aportionite, 15, who has not responded since June.
NASA is expected to send new orders over the next few weeks until the harsh winter begins on Mars, bringing all hope of "reviving" the vehicle.
NASA scientists have received no signal from the spacecraft Aportionite, the planet's oldest spacecraft since June 10, 2018, when NASA received the latest probe from the spacecraft.
The huge dust storm that hit Mars for nearly two months during the summer has silenced the probe, which is the biggest obstacle for Opportunity since the beginning of its missions.
Although the Mars probe has experienced many dust storms in the past and that it has survived during its mission on the red planet, this latest storm, described by NASA as "one of the worst of all time, "was the deadliest probe Opportunity.
In a statement released on Friday, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said engineers had begun issuing a new set of signals intended to wake up the standby probe, which would deal with "low-potential events" that could have prevented the vehicle to send signals to the Earth.
One of the possibilities is that the X-band base radio has been disturbed, the second and X-band secondary radios, and the third is that its internal clock is off.
The NASA lab noted that the orders to be sent would include a command for the vehicle to go to backup the "X-band" radio in order to reset the clock and respond via "UHF", a very radio frequency high.
Despite all these efforts, the hope that the vehicle comes back to life goes out and fades every day that remains at the arrival of the harsh winter on Mars.
Given the landing area of the Aportione mission in the southern hemisphere of Mars, the southern half of Mars during the winter is far away from the sun, which means that it is not possible. it is colder than the northern half.
The NASA team noted that these harsh conditions "are likely to cause damage to the battery of a vehicle without power, internal wiring systems and / or a computer, can not be repaired ".
If the last attempt to connect to the spaceship fails, it means that all possible ways to revitalize Opportunity will be exhausted.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory should discuss with the Opportunity Mission Program and NASA to determine what to do next.
Upon his return in September, NASA set a 45-day delay before abandoning the probe, apparently lengthening it. NASA had then announced that it would stop the current attempts to reach the probe and listen to it only.
Source: RT
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