Nasa officials are finally coming to terms with the fact the Opportunity rover could be lost forever.
The rover, which is located on the rim of Mars’ Endeavour Crater, has been out of contact for four months after a raging dust storm encircled the red planet.
Skies eventually cleared by mid-September, when America’s space agency began a six-week listening programme to try and receive data from their device.
However, that’s already nearing expiration and the solar-powered robot remains dormant – with scientists set to stop trying to contact it in the coming days.
Nasa’s Opportunity rover has finally been lost on Mars four months after a raging dust storm encircled the red planet, the space agency has said
Dr Lori Glaze, acting director of Nasa’s planetary science division, suggested that attempts to recover the rover by sending daily signals would be coming to an end.
‘The batteries may be getting too cold and that may be too much for ‘the little rover that could’,’ Dr Glaze told the Times.
Last week Dr Glaze said that efforts to revive the rover would only continue for ‘another week or two’.
‘It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions the last couple of days’, said Mike Staab, a systems engineer and flight director at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
‘We’re all just trying to do what we believe is right’, he said.
Nasa said it ‘not set any deadlines’ for giving up contact.
In desperate attempts to revive it engineers have played it songs such as played it songs such as Wham!’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.
Earlier this month it was revealed that even if it does come back on, Nasa is anticipating ‘complexity’ with the rover’s mission clock.
Without enough energy to sustain its mission clock, which is thought to be the only instrument still working, the rover won’t know what time it is.
So far, Opportunity has exceeded its expected lifespan many times over.
Opportunity fell silent back in June, with no way to power its solar battery as dust continued to block out the sun. The animation shows how the rover (centre) was directly in the path of the raging storm
Both Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, were designed to last only 90 days on the Martian surface, with the expectation that the planet’s extreme winters and dust storms could cut their mission short.
Nasa launched the Opportunity rover as part of its Mars Exploration Rover program in 2004.
It landed on Mars’ Meridiani Planum plain near its equator on January 25, 2004.
The inhospitable red planet: Without enough energy to sustain its mission clock, which is thought to be the only instrument still working, the rover won’t know what time it is
Opportunity’s panoramic camera (Pancam) took the component images for this view from a position outside Endeavor Crater during the span of June 7 to June 19, 2017. It is one of the last images the rover sent.
The rover has lasted nearly 15 years: It last communicated on June 10 before being forced into hibernation by the growing dust storm.
In its lifetime, Opportunity has explored two craters on the red planet, Victoria and Endeavour, as well as found several signs of water.
Nasa has made several updates to the spacecraft since it landed on Mars, such as its flash memory.