Opportunity Rover Makes It Through Depths of 8th Martian Winter

By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | December 8, 2017 07:30am ET

The harsh Martian elements still haven't broken NASA's long-lived Opportunity rover.

The solar-powered Opportunity has rolled through the coldest and darkest parts of the Martian winter in good nick, NASA officials said. The lowest-light period of the current Red Planet year, which lasts 687 Earth days, came in October and November, they added.

The rover is therefore well on its way to surviving this winter, the eighth the craft has endured since touching down in January 2004, a few weeks after its twin, Spirit, landed. Both six-wheeled robots were tasked with searching for signs of past water activity on Mars, in missions designed to last just three months. [Latest Mars Rover Photos from Opportunity & Spirit]

"I didn't start working on this project until about Sol 300," Jennifer Herman, power subsystem operations team lead for Opportunity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. (A sol is a Martian day, which lasts about 24 hours and 40 minutes.) "I was told not to get too settled in, because Spirit and Opportunity probably wouldn't make it through that first Martian winter. Now, Opportunity has made it through the worst part of its eighth Martian winter."

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