Talk:Opportunity (rover)

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A news item involving Opportunity (rover) was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on the following dates:

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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on January 25, 2005, January 25, 2006, January 25, 2007, January 25, 2014, and January 25, 2018.

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lensaticflare.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sol for Sol statistics

I assembled a table which contains the information about the current energy level, tau and dust factor, odometry and some other information about every sol. I share this table, editable for everyone. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HgO7q0ggPc75EcLVCexGnAhro5vmBFX3K2JZn1vhy0Q/edit?usp=sharing

The table contains the following: - The sols until 4957 - The watt-hours per sol as reported in the weekly MER report (https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/status_opportunityAll.html) - Also the tau factor and dust factor - And the odometry - In the column "Cleaning event" I marked the sols, which were reported that a cleaning event happend. - The columns "Start site", "L sub S", "UTC at local noon" and activity I took from the Analyst's Notebook. (But only to Sol 4680).

I think it will be useful to keep the "power" section of this article up to date.

If someone has information about the energy levels from the beginning of the mission please let me know.

Sources are:

MoreInput (talk) 19:57, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Really nice graph!! Fotaun (talk) 15:28, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dust storm

Since the rover keeps silent under the sunshine, the best scenario is that some dust did cover the solar panels after all: [1]. NASA hoping for wind now. -Rowan Forest (talk)

That should sound cool Adebola Ayinde (talk) 09:35, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Attempts to waken Opportunity

FWIW - the very latest attempt to waken the Opportunity rover has just been reported (06:45pm/et/usa; 15 November 2018)^[1] - hope this helps in some way - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 00:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Oberhaus, Daniel (15 November 2018). "Mars Opportunity Rover Appears to Send Data to Earth After Five Months of Silence - Unfortunately, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that "further investigation shows these signals were not an Opportunity transmission" but was either test data or a false positive". MotherBoard. Retrieved 15 November 2018.

Tense

With the mission over, we should still be referring the rover itself in the present tense, it still exists (as best we know), just simply dead to any attempts to wake it. The mission is over, so its activities and the like can be declared past tense. --Masem (t) 22:48, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Masem, sounds good to me WelpThatWorked (talk) 15:50, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Last message

We should describe its last message. This was poignantly summarized by Scott Manley as My batteries are low, and it's getting dark. This is an epitaph that people can identify with, and will remember. Wikipedia should have the accurate version of this message for historical reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam1729 (talk • contribs) 19:38, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've added this, but the attribution is wrong, it came from Jacob Margolis. --Masem (t) 19:52, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The last status message was telemetry (numbers), including sunlight levels, battery charge, and temperature. I do not agree to anthropomorphy the rover (any rover) by dramatizing the data to craft a written message in the first person. While it is good PR for public outreach, it is not accurate nor encyclopedic. Rowan Forest (talk) 23:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I wish that the last message was mentioned in the article as it was and as it was spread. If Wikipedia doesn't mention what was actually sent people will keep thinking that Opportunity's last message really was "My batteries are low, and it's getting dark." 83.217.150.236 (talk) 17:47, 16 February 2019 (UT

A way to approach this overall is that we should have a Legacy section, which starts by describing the more mainstream reaction to how successful Opportunity was, and then how the media reacted on it's "death", which at that point we can include that message (or at least, an interpretation of the stream of numbers). --Masem (t) 17:50, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

*Opportunity* rover ‒ last image^[1]
(of 228,771 raw images ‒ 10 June 2018)^[2]

The article already explains with info and charts that the last telemetry showed low light levels (opacity) and low battery charge. The Hollywood script on "My batteries are low, and it's getting dark" never happened. Regarding its "legacy", it is at Scientific information from the Mars Exploration Rover mission. - Rowan Forest (talk) 17:55, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm saying that the press interpretation of that message has been given sufficient coverage to talk about it as part of a media response to the end of mission in a section fully separate from the technical mission specifics. --Masem (t) 18:16, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Let me add another reason because the way the press reported that, there's clearly editors that think Opp actually sent that sentence because the press is sloppy. Adding that as part of a legecy stressing that it a popular interpretation of that data should hopefully stop editors that think they are helping because of the press's poor reporting on that. --Masem (t) 01:27, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I do not oppose a section on "Tributes" or such. There it would be presented how the press relates to the vehicle and to its enormous success. That is the correct context, not the dramatized robot's telemetry as if an AI expired its "last words". Rowan Forest (talk) 03:03, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"The Dead Mars Rover Didn’t Actually Say That “My Battery” Thing." by Jon Christian, Futurism. -Rowan Forest (talk) 22:26, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No, the Last Words of NASA's Opportunity Rover Weren't 'My Battery Is Low and It's Getting Dark'. By Aristos Gregorgiou. Newsweek. -Rowan Forest (talk) 14:22, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It gives me the creeps it was scary to hear someone say that a robot talked or that someone thought it did what caused Opportunity to "die" R.I.P. Opportunity 50.106.91.66 (talk) 13:56, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW - More Last Words from the Opportunity Rover?^[3] (updated by the science reporter who posted the original tweet) (and even more last words)^[4] (and last image)^[1]^[2] - iac - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 03:59, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ ^a ^b O'Callaghan, Jonathan (18 February 2019). "This Was The Last Photo Taken By NASA's Opportunity Rover On Mars". Forbes. Retrieved 19 February 2019.}
^ ^a ^b Staff (19 February 2019). "Opportunity: All 228,771 Raw Images". NASA. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
^ Margolis, Jacob (16 February 2019). "How A Tweet About The Mars Rover Dying Blew Up On The Internet And Made People Cry". LAist. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
^ Phillips, Brian (19 February 2019). "An Ode to Opportunity: We'll Miss You, Mars Rover". The Ringer. Retrieved 19 February 2019.

End of mission

The 3rd para in this section starts 'More than 835 recovery commands were transmitted over the next 11 days, and over 1000 in the coming months, but no response was heard' - now since the last date mentioned in the text before this sentence is the 12th February 2019 and 11 days have not yet elapsed since that time, this cannot be correct, never mind '1000 more over the coming months'. Can someone who knows the story timeline set this straight? thanks Geopersona (talk) 20:16, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

NASA's blogs are clear that it was 835 commands from June 2018 to around the end of January 2019, and 1000 before they called it. --Masem (t) 20:23, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Watthour, watt-hour or watt hour?

It seems to me that the unit of energy storage (or consumption) should be either the watt hour (symbol W h) or the watthour (symbol Wh). The former is based on SI conventions and the latter is the IEEE standard^[1]. I see no basis for "watt-hour". What am I missing? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 12:38, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have provided a reference but refuse to get dragged into a stupid edit war. Good day. Dondervogel 2 (talk)

watt-hour, per standard compound unit rules. Symbol is W·h. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:55, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ IEEE Std 260.1™-2004. IEEE Standard Letter Symbols for Units of Measurement (SI Units, Customary Inch-Pound Units, and Certain Other Units)

"Oppy" (nickname)

Should we mention the rover's nickname, "Oppy," somewhere in the article? It seems to have become popular with the general public. The mention doesn't have to be front and center, necessarily. Marisauna (talk) 00:28, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I added a mention in the #Legacy section. Give your thoughts please. Marisauna (talk) 00:52, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[MB-2181115-1] Oberhaus, Daniel (15 November 2018). "Mars Opportunity Rover Appears to Send Data to Earth After Five Months of Silence - Unfortunately, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that "further investigation shows these signals were not an Opportunity transmission" but was either test data or a false positive". MotherBoard. Retrieved 15 November 2018.

[FRBS-20190218-2] O'Callaghan, Jonathan (18 February 2019). "This Was The Last Photo Taken By NASA's Opportunity Rover On Mars". Forbes. Retrieved 19 February 2019.}

[NASA-20190219-3] Staff (19 February 2019). "Opportunity: All 228,771 Raw Images". NASA. Retrieved 19 February 2019.

[LAIST-20190216-4] Margolis, Jacob (16 February 2019). "How A Tweet About The Mars Rover Dying Blew Up On The Internet And Made People Cry". LAist. Retrieved 17 February 2019.

[TR-20190219-5] Phillips, Brian (19 February 2019). "An Ode to Opportunity: We'll Miss You, Mars Rover". The Ringer. Retrieved 19 February 2019.

[6] IEEE Std 260.1™-2004. IEEE Standard Letter Symbols for Units of Measurement (SI Units, Customary Inch-Pound Units, and Certain Other Units)

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