It was only ever meant to live for 90 days. But the Mars Opportunity rover, known affectionately as Oppy, has finally died after 15 years in service with Nasa.
The US space agency declared the rover dead after reporting that engineers had not heard from it since June 10 last year, after which it was caught up in a severe dust storm.
Opportunity was tasked by Nasa with finding evidence of life on Mars.
In its time on the planet, the rover sent more than 217,000 images back to Earth, and uncovered 52 rocks with fresh mineral surfaces.
It also discovered hematite, a mineral that forms in water.
A final attempt to make contact with Opportunity was made on Tuesday to no avail, Nasa said, following more than 1,000 commands to restore communications.
Nasa staff said they had made “every reasonable engineering effort” to try to recover it.
Opportunity arrived on the red planet on January 24, 2004, seven months
after it was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on a mission to uncover evidence of life.
The solar-powered rover was only expected to travel 1,100 yards on Mars,
but by the end had run up 28 miles on the clock and set a one-day driving record on March 20, 2005, when it managed 220 yards.
“When you combine the discoveries of Opportunity and Spirit, they showed us that ancient Mars was a very different place from Mars today, which is a cold, dry, desolate world,” said Steve Squyres, principal investigator of the rovers’ science payload.
“But if you look to its ancient past, you find compelling evidence for liquid water below the surface and liquid water at the surface.”
Six-wheeled Oppy outlived its twin rover Spirit, which ceased communications in May 2011.
Nasa has already launched its next rover, while the European Space Agency will join the American rover with its own vehicle in 2020.
“It is because of trailblazing missions such as Opportunity that there will come a day when our brave astronauts walk on the surface of Mars,” said Jim Bridenstine, Nasa administrator.
“And when that day arrives, some portion of that first footprint will be
owned by the men and women of Opportunity, and a little rover that defied the odds and did so much in the name
of exploration.”
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