晚安机遇号 Good Night Oppy(2022)(EN)Subtitles

SRT Subtitles download

Color: Size:1416 18202224 26283040 LightfaceBold StandardItalic

ASS Custom style subtitle

Subtitle Preview：
1 00:00:23 (wind whistling softly)
2 00:00:29 ♪ ♪
3 00:00:36 (wind howling)
4 00:00:50 STEVE SQUYRES:At the beginning, there's nothing.
5 00:00:55 There's no concept of a robot explorer
6 00:01:01 crawling across the surfaceof another world.
7 00:01:08 And then, gradually, you start to think.
8 00:01:13 You start to act.
9 00:01:15 We just start to build.
10 00:01:20 And those machines come to life.
11 00:01:23 ♪ ♪
12 00:01:48 ♪ ♪
13 00:02:04 ♪ ♪
14 00:02:13 BEKAH SOSLAND SIEGFRIEDT:A lot of people out there would say,
15 00:02:16 "Oh, they're just robots."
16 00:02:18 (beeping, whirring)
17 00:02:19 But once we turned them onfor the first time,
18 00:02:22 they became so much morethan just robots on another planet.
19 00:02:41 ("Roam" by The B-52's playing)
20 00:02:45 (electronic trilling)
21 00:02:49 ♪ Boy, mercury ♪
22 00:02:51 ♪ Shooting through every degree ♪
23 00:02:55 ♪ Oh, girl dancing down those dirty ♪
24 00:02:59 ♪ And dusty trails ♪
25 00:03:03 (over speaker):♪ Roam if you want to ♪
26 00:03:06 ♪ Roam around the world ♪
27 00:03:10 ♪ Roam if you want to ♪
28 00:03:13 ♪ Without wings, without wheels ♪
29 00:03:17 ♪ Roam if you want to... ♪
30 00:03:20 KOBIE BOYKINS:Once the rover's on Mars,
31 00:03:22 it has its own life.
32 00:03:25 There's energy pulsing through its veins.
33 00:03:28 And it needs to be given love.
34 00:03:32 ("Roam" continues)
35 00:03:35 ASHLEY STROUPE: And so we tryand keep her as safe as possible...
36 00:03:40 ...but sometimes she hasa mind of her own.
37 00:03:59 ♪ Take it hip to hip ♪
38 00:04:01 ♪ Rocket through the wilderness ♪
39 00:04:07 ♪ Around the world... ♪
40 00:04:09 DOUG ELLISON:And so, yeah, it's only a robot.
41 00:04:12 But through this robot, we are onthis incredible adventure together.
42 00:04:18 And she becomes a family member.
43 00:04:21 ♪ Roam if you want to ♪
44 00:04:24 ♪ Without anything but the love we feel. ♪
45 00:04:30 -(clicking, whirring)-(rumbling)
46 00:04:33 (buzzing)
47 00:04:35 (song fades)
48 00:04:38 (wind howling)
49 00:04:44 ♪ ♪
50 00:05:12 ♪ ♪
51 00:05:44 JENNIFER TROSPER:Something I think we all wonder about
52 00:05:47 as we look up into the night sky...
53 00:05:52 ...is if we're really alonein this universe.
54 00:05:57 And trying to understand that
55 00:05:59 is one of the great mysteriesthat we have.
56 00:06:05 ROB MANNING:Over the centuries,
57 00:06:07 Mars has been this enigmatic
58 00:06:10 little red dot in the sky.
59 00:06:15 It invigorated imaginationsof millions of people.
60 00:06:21 What could be going onin that distant land?
61 00:06:28 STROUPE:The overall goal of the whole Mars program
62 00:06:31 has been the question of:Did Mars ever actually have life?
63 00:06:36 So, especially early onin the Mars missions,
64 00:06:39 we were following the water.
65 00:06:42 That's because, at least on Earth,everywhere that we find water...
66 00:06:49 ...there's life.
67 00:06:52 (screeching)
68 00:06:57 And so the question is:
69 00:06:59 Was there water on Mars?
70 00:07:02 And what kind of water?
71 00:07:04 And could that have helped sustain life?
72 00:07:12 MANNING: So, in the mid '70s,the two Viking missions
73 00:07:15 were kind of the epitomeof exploration at the time.
74 00:07:19 NASA sent two orbiters and two landers,
75 00:07:22 which would give usa whole new perspective on Mars.
76 00:07:29 SQUYRES:Uh-huh.
77 00:07:31 Ah...
78 00:07:35 Wow.
79 00:07:37 Yeah, there's the good one.
80 00:07:40 Wow.
81 00:07:42 (exhales, chuckles)
82 00:07:48 It's funny to have such intense memories
83 00:07:50 associated with a bunchof 40-year-old pixels.
84 00:07:53 (laughs)
85 00:07:55 But I do, man.
86 00:07:57 I remember the very first time I saw it.
87 00:07:59 ♪ ♪
88 00:08:04 At the time of the Viking mission,I was a bang-it-with-a-hammer geologist.
89 00:08:09 I would go out in the field,and I would do geologic fieldwork.
90 00:08:14 Fascinating science,
91 00:08:16 but what I found disappointing about it
92 00:08:20 was that there weren'tnew places to discover.
93 00:08:25 But then I started working with the images
94 00:08:28 from the Viking orbiters,and I would look down
95 00:08:31 on Mars using these pictures...
96 00:08:35 ...and I had no ideawhat I was looking at,
97 00:08:39 but the beauty of it was nobody did.
98 00:08:44 This was seeing stuffnobody had ever seen before.
99 00:08:49 And I knew that I was gonna dospace exploration.
100 00:08:54 MANNING: The two Viking orbiters,as they looked down on Mars, they saw...
101 00:08:57 You know, that's strange.
102 00:08:59 There could be signsof past water flowing.
103 00:09:04 Was Mars once a green world
104 00:09:07 with living things and-and blue oceans?
105 00:09:12 SQUYRES:We'd go there ourselves if we could.
106 00:09:15 But we can't.
107 00:09:17 And I just knewfrom my training as a geologist
108 00:09:21 that if we could get a roverdown on the Martian surface
109 00:09:25 and it could move around and travel
110 00:09:28 and actually look close up at the rocks,
111 00:09:30 we might find out the truthabout Martian history.
112 00:09:38 And so, starting in the mid '80s,
113 00:09:41 I'd spent ten yearswriting proposals to NASA,
114 00:09:45 but the proposals all failed. (laughs)
115 00:09:49 And I was facingthe unpleasant possibility
116 00:09:51 that I had just wastedan entire decade of my career
117 00:09:54 with nothing to show for it.
118 00:09:56 ♪ ♪
119 00:09:58 MANNING:But then we pulled a team together at JPL.
120 00:10:01 Could we actually put the roverthat Steve Squyres imagined
121 00:10:06 and use this landing systemthat we already designed?
122 00:10:12 So we produced a proposal
123 00:10:14 and presented that to NASA.
124 00:10:18 SQUYRES:And we finally get the phone call...
125 00:10:22 ...that made our dream come true.
126 00:10:25 Well, I am indeed very, very happythat we're able to announce
127 00:10:28 that we are returning to Mars--this time in force-- with twins.
128 00:10:34 The Mars twin rovers.
129 00:10:36 SQUYRES:We named 'em Spirit and Opportunity.
130 00:10:39 This was ten years of writing proposals
131 00:10:43 that finally produced the resultthat I'd been dreaming of.
132 00:10:47 But I think, if I had known at that time
133 00:10:52 what an arduous pathit was going to be from that point
134 00:10:56 to actually get onto the surface of Mars,
135 00:10:58 I wouldn't have feltquite as elated as I did.
136 00:11:00 (indistinct chatter)
137 00:11:06 MAN: If we could take our seat,I'd like to get started.
138 00:11:09 TROSPER:Okay, I'm up here as the project engineer
139 00:11:12 in order to make surethat the big picture fits together
140 00:11:15 between the flight systemand mission system.
141 00:11:17 I'll briefly go over launch,cruise and EDL.
142 00:11:20 Our whole objective was to buildtwo autonomous
143 00:11:26 solar-powered roversthat could survive 90 sols,
144 00:11:30 three months on Mars.
145 00:11:33 And we were really hopingthat at least one of them would work.
146 00:11:38 But we knew that if we don't get it rightwe're gonna miss our launch date.
147 00:11:44 SQUYRES:Schedule for mission to Mars
148 00:11:47 is literally driven bythe alignment of the planets,
149 00:11:50 and if you miss that launch window,the next one comes around...
150 00:11:55 ...26 months later.
151 00:11:58 MANNING: That's no time to design,develop and test two rovers
152 00:12:02 and put them on two rockets.
153 00:12:06 And the pressure on the teamis really phenomenal.
154 00:12:09 So we had to come up with an amazing team
155 00:12:12 working around the clock to pull it off.
156 00:12:19 BOYKINS:From a young age, I was into Star Trek.
157 00:12:23 I wanted to be Geordi La Forge.
158 00:12:25 Engineering, this is La Forge.
159 00:12:26 Shut down power to all transporters.I'm on my way.
160 00:12:28 BOYKINS: But I didn't really knowwhat that job was.
161 00:12:30 You know, I knew they were the "engineer,"but I didn't know what that was.
162 00:12:34 I just knew that I wanted to bethe person that always fixed things.
163 00:12:41 Building Spirit and Opportunityreally started on just a whiteboard.
164 00:12:47 Okay, we want to have a 90-day mission,
165 00:12:50 and we want to find evidenceof past water.
166 00:12:53 Okay, what do we need to do that?
167 00:12:56 And then this team of different engineers
168 00:12:59 has to bring that rover to life.
169 00:13:06 ASHITEY TREBI-OLLENNU:This was my first mission.
170 00:13:08 And it was very exciting, you know,
171 00:13:11 doing somethingthat no one has done before.
172 00:13:14 I grew up in Ghana, and when I was a kid,I was very fascinated by radio.
173 00:13:20 And I also was curious--are there people inside the radio?
174 00:13:24 So, one day, I opened a radio,and I was disappointed
175 00:13:26 to find there were no people in the radio.
176 00:13:29 So that's my fascination with engineering.
177 00:13:32 BOYKINS:For the rover design...
178 00:13:36 ...it was a deliberate decisionto make the characteristics humanlike.
179 00:13:44 TREBI-OLLENNU:When you're a geologist
180 00:13:46 and you're working in the field,you typically take the rock
181 00:13:48 and then break it up to look inside of it.
182 00:13:52 So the robot needs the robotic arm
183 00:13:55 that has multiple instruments to takemeasurements and microscopic images.
184 00:14:01 Like a Swiss Army knife.
185 00:14:07 SQUYRES: Now, the resolutionof the rovers' cameras is
186 00:14:10 the exact equivalentof human 20/20 vision.
187 00:14:15 So, all of a sudden, they start to lookan awful lot like eyeballs.
188 00:14:21 BOYKINS: And then the heightof the rover was five foot two.
189 00:14:24 That's the average heightof a human being.
190 00:14:30 So it would feel like, as the roverwas driving, taking these images,
191 00:14:33 that a human beingwas walking along the surface.
192 00:14:39 ELLISON:It's just a box of wires, right?
193 00:14:44 But you end up with this
194 00:14:46 cute-ish-looking robot that has a face.
195 00:14:52 TROSPER: So we had theseamazing science instruments,
196 00:14:56 but once you put all that stuffon the rover,
197 00:14:59 the mass gets bigger.
198 00:15:03 Then this is gonna be a big problemfor landing on Mars.
199 00:15:07 But then what I'm trying to look atis actually literally using
200 00:15:09 six little bungee cordsattached here to airbags.
201 00:15:13 And the challenge here is that there'sa lot of different ways to do this.
202 00:15:16 A lot of different ways to do this.
203 00:15:18 We don't know which one is the best,and we really only get one shot at it.
204 00:15:21 TROSPER:So our landing system
205 00:15:23 had these big airbags that inflated.
206 00:15:27 And they would bounce itacross the surface.
207 00:15:31 MANNING:The biggest problem right off the bat--
208 00:15:33 we started doing the math for how muchthe Spirit and Opportunity
209 00:15:35 were going to weigh,
210 00:15:37 and will those airbagsbe able to handle that weight?
211 00:15:43 So we started doing tests.
212 00:15:45 -What the...?-This is just dandy.
213 00:15:47 -This is not a problem. Yeah.-No, this is a... this is a good rock.
214 00:15:49 -I like this rock.-Yes.
215 00:15:51 TROSPER:And so we were trying out the airbags
216 00:15:54 with the types of rockswe could encounter on Mars.
217 00:15:57 We do the first big drop.
218 00:16:01 (laughing):Huge gaping holes in these airbags
219 00:16:04 get ripped by the rocks, and we're like,"Oh, this is not good.
220 00:16:08 Not good at all."
221 00:16:10 MANNING: The parachutes wereanother story altogether.
222 00:16:13 MAN (over speaker):Three, two, one.
223 00:16:16 MANNING: But we did those testswith this big rocket-shaped payload
224 00:16:20 and dropped it out of the skyfrom a helicopter.
225 00:16:22 First one, the parachute tore to shreds.
226 00:16:26 (helicopter blades whirring)
227 00:16:29 The second one...
228 00:16:31 MAN:Oh!
229 00:16:33 MANNING:...was torn to shreds.
230 00:16:36 And so we realizedwe didn't have a working parachute.
231 00:16:39 Unfortunately, that chutethat just exploded was the chute
232 00:16:43 that we were planning on taking to Mars.
233 00:16:45 Cut to the quick.You're in very, very serious trouble.
234 00:16:49 What part of this gives you gas?
235 00:16:52 Where are you concerned?
236 00:16:53 PETE THEISINGER: There's a list of threatsthat these guys have come to me with,
237 00:16:56 and I've added all those threats up.
238 00:16:59 They go in the category of everythingwe can think of that can go wrong.
239 00:17:03 I understand your concern...
240 00:17:04 TROSPER:In the back of your mind, you're like,
241 00:17:06 "This is a billion-dollar national asset.
242 00:17:09 This could be a complete disaster."
243 00:17:17 (machine whirring)
244 00:17:20 MAN (over speaker):Okay, we're ready.
245 00:17:22 Here we go.
246 00:17:24 (vibrating, rattling)
247 00:17:33 SQUYRES:So we built Spirit and Opportunity
248 00:17:36 with the intentionof them being identical twins.
249 00:17:40 (laughing):And they kind of started out that way,
250 00:17:42 but things diverged quickly.
251 00:17:50 -(vibrating and rattling stop)-MAN: Okay, we're all clear.
252 00:17:52 ELLISON:All the way through assembly and testing,
253 00:17:55 it was always Spirit
254 00:17:56 hitting some sort of test firstand she would fail.
255 00:17:59 (indistinct chatter)
256 00:18:00 -We lost a bushing.-We lost a bushing?
257 00:18:03 Look on… look on the deck.
258 00:18:06 ELLISON:And along comes Opportunity.
259 00:18:09 (laughing):Everybody... Okay.
260 00:18:12 Three, two, one.
261 00:18:15 -(whirring)-MAN: Oh.
262 00:18:16 MAN 2:Ah!
263 00:18:18 -Thank you.-(man whistles)
264 00:18:20 ELLISON: And on every test, Opportunitycame through with flying colors.
265 00:18:25 So, even before they left this planet,Spirit was troublesome,
266 00:18:29 Opportunity was Little Miss Perfect.
267 00:18:35 BOYKINS: So, after so much timetesting and building our rovers...
268 00:18:40 ...now it's time to put Oppyon the ground.
269 00:18:44 ♪ ♪
270 00:18:47 This is the very first time
271 00:18:50 we breathe life into the rover.
272 00:18:53 Move.
273 00:19:01 Her first steps.
274 00:19:05 I'm getting tingly.
275 00:19:07 'Cause it was like...(gasps) "It's alive!"
276 00:19:10 (applause)
277 00:19:15 SQUYRES: She becomesalmost like a living thing to you.
278 00:19:21 A real living robotthat you can imagine going to Mars
279 00:19:25 and doing the thingsthat you've dreamed of doing there.
280 00:19:30 To say it's like a child being bornwould be to trivialize parenthood,
281 00:19:33 but it feels sort of like that.
282 00:19:38 MANNING:But you feel like it's not clear
283 00:19:41 your child is really readyfor this wild and woolly world.
284 00:19:47 SQUYRES: Had we doneall the testing we wanted to do?
285 00:19:51 Absolutely not.
286 00:19:56 But eventually, you just run out of time.
287 00:19:59 And it was time to fly.
288 00:20:05 (birds chirping, insects trilling)
289 00:20:08 BOYKINS:We're out here at 5:30 in the morning,
290 00:20:10 but, you know, for us,this is a lot of time,
291 00:20:14 lot of hours, lot of sleepless nightscoming together, so...
292 00:20:18 It's sort of surreal. I don't knowif it's really gonna happen yet.
293 00:20:21 You know, it's like the wholebutterfly thing going on at this point.
294 00:20:24 ♪ ♪
295 00:20:35 Lucky peanuts.
296 00:20:38 TROSPER:So, Spirit would launch first.
297 00:20:41 And Opportunity three weeks later.
298 00:20:44 MARK ADLER:This is Delta Launch Control at
299 00:20:46 T-minus eight minutes, 40 seconds,and counting.
300 00:20:48 TROSPER: And I was inthe control room for Spirit at JPL.
301 00:20:53 And I actually like itwhen I have a job to do
302 00:20:57 because then I'm focused
303 00:20:59 and-and it's a little harderto get emotional,
304 00:21:02 because you have somethingyou have to focus on.
305 00:21:04 ADLER: This is the final checksof the Spirit MER-A spacecraft.
306 00:21:09 TROSPER:I'm a farm girl from Ohio.
307 00:21:11 I grew up raising sheep, pigs, cows.
308 00:21:14 And my dad had workedin the Army Corps of Engineers...
309 00:21:18 ...on the very first rockets, and he wouldjust tell these amazing stories.
310 00:21:25 But aerospace engineering wasn'tsomething that girls around me did.
311 00:21:32 So I just couldn't imaginethat I would ever have
312 00:21:35 the opportunity to send a rover to Mars.
313 00:21:39 TROSPER (over radio):MER-2 is go for launch.
314 00:21:41 MAN (over radio):Roger.
315 00:21:42 BOYKINS:T-minus ten... you start freaking out.
316 00:21:46 ADLER:Nine, eight, seven,
317 00:21:49 six, five, four,
318 00:21:52 (echoing):three, two, one.
319 00:21:54 -BOYKINS: The engines start.-ADLER: And liftoff!
320 00:21:57 (rumbling, whooshing)
321 00:21:59 BOYKINS:You hear that rocket.
322 00:22:04 No firecracker, no firecracker,
323 00:22:06 no firecracker, no firecracker,no firecracker, no firecracker,
324 00:22:08 -no firecracker, no firecracker.-(cheering)
325 00:22:10 ♪ ♪
326 00:22:15 MAN: Load relief integrated in.Vehicle's responding.
327 00:22:18 Vehicle's recovering very nicelyfrom the liftoff transition.
328 00:22:22 I don't know whether I shed a tear,but I think, you know,
329 00:22:26 this rocket is carryingmy hopes and dreams.
330 00:22:29 (chuckles):And, um...
331 00:22:31 you know, it's very...
332 00:22:34 it's very difficult to describe. (laughs)
333 00:22:37 But you-you feelyour life's work in the rocket.
334 00:22:40 (whooping, whistling)
335 00:22:44 (cheering, whistling)
336 00:22:47 BOYKINS:I have raised this child.
337 00:22:49 Yeah!
338 00:22:51 That's sort of what it feels like.
339 00:22:55 And now it's that child's moment to shine.
340 00:22:59 SQUYRES:But it was hard to say goodbye.
341 00:23:04 I devoted 16 years of my lifeto these rovers.
342 00:23:10 And then you put 'em on top of a rocket
343 00:23:12 and you shoot 'em into space
344 00:23:15 and you're never going to see 'em again.
345 00:23:21 TROSPER:For Opportunity,
346 00:23:23 I was out with my, uh, family,and we were watching
347 00:23:26 from the same launchpad that my dadhad launched his missions from.
348 00:23:33 And he had since passed away.
349 00:23:37 And he was the proudest dad anybody...anybody could ever have.
350 00:23:42 It was just very emotional--for me, for my mom, for my family--
351 00:23:46 to just see how he had encouragedand inspired me
352 00:23:51 to do space exploration.
353 00:24:06 (whooshing)
354 00:24:10 BOYKINS: The travel time to Marsfor both rovers was six and a half months.
355 00:24:18 Spirit and Opportunity were onlythree weeks behind each other,
356 00:24:21 so they're not super far apartin celestial terms.
357 00:24:25 So we have a trajectory to Mars,and we want to make sure
358 00:24:28 that we are following that road to Marsas we move along.
359 00:24:36 It's like you're in Los Angelesand you want to hit a golf ball
360 00:24:40 to hit a door handleat Buckingham Palace,
361 00:24:42 and that's what we're trying to do.
362 00:24:46 BOYKINS:We call it the quiescent period.
363 00:24:48 Six and a half months of quiescent time,nothing going on.
364 00:24:51 Well, that's not exactly true.
365 00:24:54 (explosive booming)
366 00:24:58 MANNING:We got hit by the largest series
367 00:25:01 of solar flaresthat had ever been seen before.
368 00:25:05 And we saw this big ejectionof the sun's energies and particles
369 00:25:09 racing toward our spacecraft.
370 00:25:12 ♪ ♪
371 00:25:19 TREBI-OLLENNU:Throughout solar flares,
372 00:25:22 the sun releases bursts of plasma.
373 00:25:28 Plasma is a highly chargedcloud of electrons.
374 00:25:34 MANNING: And the energetic particles,which could actually kill a human,
375 00:25:38 they go slamming right into our rovers.
376 00:25:42 All the way in to the computer.
377 00:25:50 BOYKINS:Really bad for spacecraft.
378 00:25:51 (rattling)
379 00:25:55 MANNING: Now software we put on boardhad been corrupted.
380 00:26:01 So we had to reboot both rovers.
381 00:26:07 BOYKINS: So we told our Johnny Fivesto go to sleep.
382 00:26:11 This is really scary.
383 00:26:15 TROSPER: So you're loading thisnew version of software up on the vehicles
384 00:26:20 and transitioning to it.
385 00:26:22 You know, control, alt, delete,hoping it all works.
386 00:26:24 ♪ ♪
387 00:26:26 (whirring)
388 00:26:28 (beeping)
389 00:26:30 (powering up)
390 00:26:32 (clicking, whirring)
391 00:26:36 MANNING:It worked. They rebooted.
392 00:26:42 And it took us a couple of weeksto clean up our computers.
393 00:26:48 By then, the sun had calmed down,
394 00:26:50 the software was loaded,and we were ready to land on Mars.
395 00:27:00 SQUYRES:But at that time,
396 00:27:03 two thirds of missions to Mars had failed.
397 00:27:08 Mars was a spacecraft graveyard...(chuckles) when we flew.
398 00:27:11 (whooshing)
399 00:27:15 A few years before,NASA launched two missions to Mars,
400 00:27:19 Mars Polar Landerand Mars Climate Orbiter.
401 00:27:22 (explosion)
402 00:27:24 Both failed.
403 00:27:27 One burned up in the atmosphere.
404 00:27:29 The other one crashed on the surface.
405 00:27:33 BOYKINS:Mars Climate Orbiter--
406 00:27:34 it was a communication error.
407 00:27:36 We were convertingwhat was given to us in English--
408 00:27:40 we thought it was given to us in metric.
409 00:27:43 And that's ridiculously embarrassing.
410 00:27:45 Big news from outer space,ladies and gentlemen.
411 00:27:48 Apparently now, scientists claimthere is no intelligent life...
412 00:27:53 -at NASA. Yeah.-(laughter)
413 00:27:55 Couldn't find it.
414 00:27:57 SQUYRES:And so all eyes were kind of on us.
415 00:28:03 Our team felt that Spirit and Opportunity
416 00:28:08 needed to be a mission of redemption.
417 00:28:13 BOYKINS:As part of the team, we felt as though,
418 00:28:17 if this landing didn't succeed...
419 00:28:20 ...this might be the end of NASA.
420 00:28:26 Good evening, everyone,and welcome to what promises to be
421 00:28:29 both an exciting and eventful nighthere at JPL.
422 00:28:33 This is live coverageof Spirit's landing on Mars...
423 00:28:36 Live coverageof Opportunity's landing on Mars.
424 00:28:39 And tonight, the navigation team saysall systems are go.
425 00:28:44 ♪ ♪
426 00:28:48 TROSPER: Spirit and Opportunity weregoing to land on opposite sides of Mars
427 00:28:51 three weeks apart.
428 00:28:55 The anxiety is very high.
429 00:28:58 I don't know at what point I, uh,went on blood pressure medication.
430 00:29:03 WAYNE LEE (over radio): And a pleasantgood evening to the flight deck.
431 00:29:06 Our current speed is11,320 miles per hour,
432 00:29:09 which is fast enough to traversea distance equal to the United States
433 00:29:12 in 12 minutes.
434 00:29:13 At this time, we'd like to invite youto sit back and enjoy the landing.
435 00:29:20 BOYKINS:So, entry, descent, landing.
436 00:29:24 It's approximately 86 events where,if one thing goes wrong...
437 00:29:27 (whooshing)
438 00:29:30 ...we will lose the rovers.
439 00:29:33 It's the scariest thingyou can ever think of,
440 00:29:35 because the communication time
441 00:29:38 from the rover saying, "Hey,I'm doing this," to Earth is ten minutes.
442 00:29:44 There is nothing you can do
443 00:29:47 other than hope they'd survive.
444 00:29:49 TROSPER:We call it the six minutes of terror...
445 00:29:52 is the time from when the spacecraft
446 00:29:56 enters the top of the Martian atmosphere
447 00:29:58 until it does all the autonomous--all on its own-- activities it needs to do
448 00:30:03 to get safely landed on the ground.
449 00:30:06 LEE (over radio):Atmospheric entry in...
450 00:30:08 three, two, one.
451 00:30:10 (whooshing)
452 00:30:13 TROSPER: Everything is on the linein the six minutes of terror.
453 00:30:16 LEE: The vehicle is nowat the top of the Martian atmosphere.
454 00:30:19 At the time of peak heating,the heat shield will be heated
455 00:30:22 to temperatures upwardsof 1600 degrees Celsius.
456 00:30:24 (wind whistling)
457 00:30:26 BOYKINS:Parachute opens.
458 00:30:29 Slows you down more.
459 00:30:31 LEE (over radio):Current velocity is 446 miles per hour.
460 00:30:33 At this time, we expectthe vehicle has gone subsonic.
461 00:30:38 BOYKINS: You have this thingcalled the heat shield that's super hot,
462 00:30:41 and you have to get rid of it.
463 00:30:45 MANNING:But now the hard part begins.
464 00:30:48 The lander has to rappel downon a 20-meter rope.
465 00:30:54 BOYKINS: So now you have a parachute,you have this back shell,
466 00:30:56 you have this lander.
467 00:31:01 The airbags inflate.
468 00:31:08 At 40 feet,the back shell fires retro-rockets,
469 00:31:11 slows the rover downto zero miles per hour
470 00:31:14 and then cuts the last cord.
471 00:31:23 (quiet chatter)
472 00:31:25 LEE (over radio):We won't see a signal at the moment.
473 00:31:27 MAN: We saw an intermittent signalthat indicated we were bouncing.
474 00:31:30 However... however, we currentlydo not have signal from the spacecraft.
475 00:31:34 LEE:Please stand by.
476 00:31:42 MANNING:Spirit vanishes.
477 00:31:46 The signal goes away.
478 00:31:50 Completely gone.
479 00:31:53 In other words, she may have crashed.
480 00:32:02 BOYKINS:Silence.
481 00:32:05 Everybody waiting for a signal.
482 00:32:08 Everybody waiting for something.
483 00:32:12 (takes deep breath)
484 00:32:15 MANNING: I was thinkingthat we did all of this in vain.
485 00:32:20 That maybe we lost this mission.
486 00:32:22 ♪ ♪
487 00:32:30 POLLY ESTABROOK:Do you see it? Do you see it?
488 00:32:32 -Do you see it?-What do we see? -W-W-Wait, wait.
489 00:32:34 (cheering, excited chatter)
490 00:32:35 It's there, Rob!
491 00:32:37 (excited chattering)
492 00:32:40 LEE (over radio):We have a very strong signal
493 00:32:42 in the left-hand polarization channel,
494 00:32:43 indicating that… (continues indistinctly)
495 00:32:46 (excited chattering)
496 00:32:48 MANNING (over radio):We're on Mars, everybody.
497 00:33:00 You see us jumping up and down.
498 00:33:02 We're not jumping for joy.
499 00:33:05 We're jumping for relief.
500 00:33:09 Both rovers landed safelyon the surface of Mars.
501 00:33:15 (excited chatter)
502 00:33:18 The signal's going up and down.It means that...
503 00:33:20 (chatter continues indistinctly)
504 00:33:27 NARRATOR:Spirit rover diary.
505 00:33:29 January 4, 2004. Sol one.
506 00:33:45 ♪ ♪
507 00:33:47 CHRIS LEWICKI (over radio): Ladies andgentlemen, you are privileged to be
508 00:33:50 in one of the most exciting rooms on Earthat the moment.
509 00:33:53 ABIGAIL FRAEMAN:I was actually a high school student
510 00:33:56 when Opportunity landed.
511 00:33:58 I was selected, um,
512 00:34:00 as one of 16 studentsfrom around the world...
513 00:34:03 ...to be in the mission control roomwith the science team
514 00:34:07 when Oppy sent down her first images.
515 00:34:10 MAN (over radio):Full Navcams are coming down now.
516 00:34:12 Full Navcams.
517 00:34:13 (applause)
518 00:34:18 LEWICKI (over radio):Wow!
519 00:34:19 We are on Mars.
520 00:34:21 (cheering)
521 00:34:29 TROSPER: When those firstimages come, the relief...
522 00:34:34 the relief, you know, the levelof my bl-blood pressure going back down.
523 00:34:42 Then we're all on cloud nine.
524 00:34:46 (squealing excitedly, laughing)
525 00:34:52 (sighs)
526 00:34:54 My child has arrived.
527 00:34:56 (laughs) It's...
528 00:34:57 ♪ Ah... ♪
529 00:35:02 Welcome to Mars.
530 00:35:08 NARRATOR:Opportunity rover diary. Sol one.
531 00:35:13 The signal from the vehicleis solid and strong.
532 00:35:17 Opportunity is on Mars.
533 00:35:21 ♪ ♪
534 00:35:23 (whirring)
535 00:35:44 (buzzes, beeps)
536 00:35:46 BOYKINS: Opportunity landed in a smalllittle crater in the Meridiani Planes.
537 00:35:52 And it was a 300-million-mile hole in one.
538 00:35:58 NARRATOR:Pancam, Navcam and Hazcams
539 00:36:01 are all returning spectacular images.
540 00:36:08 What in God's name are we looking at?
541 00:36:10 (rover beeps, buzzes)
542 00:36:14 SQUYRES:I will attempt no science analysis,
543 00:36:17 'cause it looks like nothingI've ever seen before in my life.
544 00:36:19 (laughter)
545 00:36:21 As we had expected, holy smokes.
546 00:36:24 I'm sorry, I'm just... (stammers, sighs)
547 00:36:27 (laughter)
548 00:36:30 I got no words for this.
549 00:36:35 There was this dark sand everywhere.
550 00:36:42 And then poking out in the distancewere these light-colored rocks.
551 00:36:48 They were jumping up and down and saying,
552 00:36:50 "Oh, my gosh, that's bedrock, you guys.I see bedrock."
553 00:36:53 And, you know, of course,I didn't know what that meant.
554 00:36:56 I didn't know why that was important.
555 00:36:57 But I don't thinkI slept a wink that night.
556 00:37:00 It was so exciting.
557 00:37:06 NARRATOR: It's the stuff thatcan tell you what happened right here
558 00:37:09 in this exact place long ago.
559 00:37:15 (beeps, whirs)
560 00:37:18 (beeping)
561 00:37:22 NARRATOR: Hundreds upon hundredsof people around the world
562 00:37:25 have worked on this project.
563 00:37:28 And it all had to go perfectlyto make this moment happen.
564 00:37:35 ♪ ♪
565 00:37:43 (beeping)
566 00:37:48 Spirit's alive, Opportunity landed safely,
567 00:37:52 and we've got real bedrockin front of us at Meridiani.
568 00:37:57 Now it's time for sleep.
569 00:38:04 (birds chirping)
570 00:38:05 REPORTER:Hello, everyone.
571 00:38:06 This is a big day for the rover on Mars.
572 00:38:10 And it's ready to do exactlywhat it was designed to do
573 00:38:14 and be a robotic geologist.
574 00:38:18 Per custom, our morningwake-up song is coming right up.
575 00:38:23 ("Born to Be Wild" by Steppenwolf playing)
576 00:38:30 ♪ Get your motor runnin' ♪
577 00:38:34 ♪ Head out on the highway... ♪
578 00:38:36 SQUYRES:A tradition in human spaceflight...
579 00:38:40 ...has been to wake the crew up.
580 00:38:42 The crew wake-up song,which they would play music.
581 00:38:45 You know, "Wake up, guys.It's time to get to work."
582 00:38:47 ("Born to Be Wild" guitar riff playing)
583 00:38:51 ♪ Born to be wild... ♪
584 00:38:54 STROUPE:The Martian day-- we call it a sol--
585 00:38:58 is about 40 minutes longerthan an Earth day.
586 00:39:01 So your schedule is shiftingby about an hour every single day.
587 00:39:06 SQUYRES:We were all living on Mars time.
588 00:39:09 And it was a tough way to live
589 00:39:11 'cause, you know, the daily planningmeeting today is gonna start at noon,
590 00:39:15 and two and a half weeks later,we started a new day at midnight.
591 00:39:19 ♪ We were born, born to be wild... ♪
592 00:39:21 TROSPER:And so we were tired, we were jet-lagged,
593 00:39:24 and we needed to wake up, too.
594 00:39:26 ♪ I never wanna die ♪
595 00:39:30 (playing faintly over speaker):♪ Born to be wild... ♪
596 00:39:34 (clicking, whirring)
597 00:39:36 TROSPER:And now we were on this 90-sol race
598 00:39:39 to find out as muchas we could about Mars.
599 00:39:43 ♪ ♪
600 00:39:45 SQUYRES: We picked the Spiritlanding site, Gusev Crater,
601 00:39:49 that looked like it had a huge,dried-up riverbed flowing into it,
602 00:39:53 and we went there hoping to findevidence of past water
603 00:39:58 and past habitability.
604 00:40:01 I mean, there has to have beena lake in Gusev Crater
605 00:40:04 at one time.
606 00:40:12 FRAEMAN: But all Spirit foundwas this prison of lava rocks.
607 00:40:16 (beeping, whirring)
608 00:40:25 No evidence at all for any interactionwith water on these rocks.
609 00:40:29 (clicking, beeping)
610 00:40:37 ELLISON:On the other side of Mars,
611 00:40:40 Opportunity's landing site was unlikeanything we'd ever seen before.
612 00:40:48 NARRATOR:Opportunity. Sol eight.
613 00:40:51 We've gotten downthe first images of the soil
614 00:40:54 right in front of the rover.
615 00:40:56 It's the strangest-looking thingwe've ever seen on Mars.
616 00:41:02 SQUYRES: So it turns outthe surface of Mars at this location
617 00:41:06 is covered by
618 00:41:08 an uncountable numberof little round... things.
619 00:41:12 (chuckles)
620 00:41:13 (whirring)
621 00:41:18 And when she got to the outcrop...
622 00:41:22 ...these little round thingswere embedded in the rock
623 00:41:25 like blueberries in a muffin.
624 00:41:35 FRAEMAN: And it turns out the compositionof these little blueberries
625 00:41:39 was a mineral called hematite,
626 00:41:42 which is a mineral that often formsin the presence of water.
627 00:41:45 (applause, cheering)
628 00:41:52 SQUYRES: From the mineralogy,from the geochemistry,
629 00:41:55 everything that we needed
630 00:41:58 to come to a reasonable conclusionthat there was once water on Mars
631 00:42:03 was right therein the walls of Eagle Crater.
632 00:42:08 But...
633 00:42:10 this is a very acidic environment.
634 00:42:14 Not a place where lifecould have developed.
635 00:42:18 So, yes, there had been liquid water,
636 00:42:21 but this wasn't waterthat you or I would want to drink.
637 00:42:24 (beeping, whirring)
638 00:42:30 It was basically like battery acid.
639 00:42:35 You would not wantto put your toes in there.
640 00:42:37 You probably wouldn't haveany toes left if you did.
641 00:42:46 What you really want is nice, flowing,neutral-pH groundwater.
642 00:42:54 And so to go and finda story of habitability...
643 00:42:59 ...you've got to goon a bit of a road trip.
644 00:43:04 But the problem is
645 00:43:07 these rovers only have 90 days to live.
646 00:43:24 VANDI VERMA: Rover drivers are those of uswho operate the rover on Mars.
647 00:43:30 (quiet chatter)
648 00:43:33 It's such a fun job, but you can't
649 00:43:35 just use a steering wheel to drive it.
650 00:43:38 Because it takes anywherefrom four minutes to 20 minutes
651 00:43:41 for a signal to reach Mars.
652 00:43:44 So we'd send the commands,we then go off and sleep...
653 00:43:50 ...and then the rover will executethe drive that day.
654 00:43:53 And by the time the drive is done,
655 00:43:55 we come backand we get the results of that
656 00:43:57 and start planning again.
657 00:44:00 I grew up in India.
658 00:44:03 And when I was about seven years old,
659 00:44:05 somebody gave me this bookwhich was about space exploration,
660 00:44:08 and I was just blown away.
661 00:44:12 Did you see how close we getto that rock in the beginning?
662 00:44:15 During the mission,I was pregnant with the twins.
663 00:44:19 And so it was a different wayfor me to relate to the twin rovers.
664 00:44:23 I thought about these two beings that are
665 00:44:27 so connected and so similar
666 00:44:29 and yet are going to havecompletely independent lives.
667 00:44:35 The rovers have their own personality,
668 00:44:38 and it's hard for me to pickwhich one of them is my favorite.
669 00:44:42 Can't really pick one, you know.
670 00:44:44 It's sort of like this twin thing.(laughs)
671 00:44:50 (indistinct chatter)
672 00:44:54 TROSPER: In Gusev Crater,Spirit was in a much colder site.
673 00:44:59 Opportunity was at the equator,kind of like the vacation spot on Mars.
674 00:45:04 And so Spirit just hada tougher mission ahead of her.
675 00:45:12 BOYKINS: And so Spirit,she finds this rock we dubbed Adirondack.
676 00:45:21 She touches the rock.
677 00:45:23 (beeping)
678 00:45:28 And she doesn't call home.
679 00:45:31 (indistinct radio chatter)
680 00:45:35 Uh, yes, sir, I'm not seeinganything from our displays.
681 00:45:37 Um, you're not seeingany signal at this time?
682 00:45:44 -MAN (over radio): Uh, that's a negative.-Copy.
683 00:45:51 TROSPER:I was one of Spirit's mission managers.
684 00:45:54 And so I didn't go home for several days.
685 00:46:00 We're all kind of somberin the mission support area
686 00:46:04 where we're commanding Spirit and tryingto get any information from her.
687 00:46:09 (indistinct radio chatter)
688 00:46:11 And Mark Adler was pickingthe wake-up song for the day.
689 00:46:18 And I was just like,"Oh, do we have to play a wake-up song?"
690 00:46:20 You know, I was just worried about Spirit.
691 00:46:24 You know, the fun part of the wake-up songwas lost on me at that point.
692 00:46:30 ADLER (over speaker):And all stations, this is mission.
693 00:46:32 Uh, today is not the dayto buck a tradition, I think,
694 00:46:35 so we're gonna play a song.
695 00:46:39 ("S.O.S." by ABBA playing)
696 00:46:47 ♪ Where are those happy days? ♪
697 00:46:49 ♪ They seem so hard to find ♪
698 00:46:53 ♪ I tried to reach for you ♪
699 00:46:55 ♪ But you have closed your mind ♪
700 00:46:59 ♪ Whatever happened to our love? ♪
701 00:47:03 ♪ I wish I understood ♪
702 00:47:07 ♪ It used to be so nice ♪
703 00:47:09 ♪ It used to be so good ♪
704 00:47:15 ♪ So when you're near me,darling, can't you hear me? ♪
705 00:47:18 ♪ S.O.S. ♪
706 00:47:21 (chuckling)
707 00:47:23 ♪ The love you gave me,nothing else can save me ♪
708 00:47:26 ♪ S.O.S. ♪
709 00:47:29 ♪ When you're gone ♪
710 00:47:31 ♪ Though I try, how can I carry on? ♪
711 00:47:41 TROSPER:I thought, "What a perfect song."
712 00:47:45 ABBA, "S.O.S."
713 00:47:48 (whirring, beeping)
714 00:47:50 ("S.O.S." continues faintly over speaker)
715 00:47:52 NARRATOR: We got back a beep,but Spirit's a very sick rover.
716 00:47:58 Her flash memory on board the vehiclehas somehow become corrupted,
717 00:48:02 so she's been awakethrough the last two nights,
718 00:48:05 crashing and rebooting over and over.
719 00:48:08 She's up all night.She's like the teenage kid
720 00:48:11 who just can't stop,can't stop playing their video game.
721 00:48:13 I mean, she was just goingand going and going.
722 00:48:15 Until her batteries were almost drained.
723 00:48:21 So we said,"Let's try to get her shut down."
724 00:48:26 But we gave herthe gentle shutdown command,
725 00:48:29 and she wouldn't shut down.
726 00:48:32 And so we started to geta little panicked,
727 00:48:34 'cause now we have to send Spirita "shut down, damn it."
728 00:48:38 It's a command that,no matter what else happens,
729 00:48:40 it makes the rover shut down.
730 00:48:42 MAN (over speaker): 1-4-2 decimal alpha,decimal shut-down-damn-it until 24 hours.
731 00:48:48 ("S.O.S." continues)
732 00:48:54 MANNING: We were about readyto tell the world that we had lost Spirit.
733 00:48:57 (indistinct radio chatter)
734 00:48:58 But then, suddenly...
735 00:49:00 -WOMAN (over radio): Go ahead, Telecom.-Can confirm data is flowing.
736 00:49:03 (cheering, applause)
737 00:49:06 NARRATOR:After a few nights of severe insomnia,
738 00:49:09 the rover is now sleeping peacefully.
739 00:49:11 Go power! (laughs)
740 00:49:13 NARRATOR:Spirit is back.
741 00:49:15 Like a well-oiled machine, isn't it?
742 00:49:17 -(laughter)-(song ends)
743 00:49:22 SQUYRES (over TV):...is kind of an estimate.
744 00:49:24 The thing that's ultimately gonna limitthe lifetime of these vehicles
745 00:49:27 is buildup of dust on the solar arrays.
746 00:49:30 You can think of 90 solsas being when the warranty expires.
747 00:49:33 Okay, that's how longthe mission is intended to last.
748 00:49:36 We expect to getat least 90 sols out of it.
749 00:49:38 How much more than that we getdepends on what Mars gives us.
750 00:49:42 (whirring)
751 00:49:45 TROSPER: We were concernedthat after 90 sols on Mars
752 00:49:48 Spirit and Opportunity would nothave enough power
753 00:49:53 and that would be the waythat the rovers died.
754 00:49:56 ♪ ♪
755 00:50:00 (beeping)
756 00:50:03 (whirring)
757 00:50:06 (beeping)
758 00:50:12 (beeping)
759 00:50:16 (wind howling)
760 00:50:24 TROSPER:And then we see these dust devils,
761 00:50:26 and we were concerned about whatthey could do to Spirit and Opportunity.
762 00:50:36 MANNING:We'd taken this picture
763 00:50:37 some weeks before, and it was gettingreally, really red and dusty.
764 00:50:40 You could barely seethe solar panels anymore.
765 00:50:44 But the morning after the dust devil,
766 00:50:46 it's like somebody came along with Windex.
767 00:50:48 (imitates bottle spraying)
768 00:50:50 And the solar panels were as cleanas the day that we landed.
769 00:51:01 TROSPER: Turns out these dust devils werethe best friends these rovers had.
770 00:51:09 TREBI-OLLENNU: They were literallyour life support machines.
771 00:51:12 They come in at the right time
772 00:51:15 to breathe… They let off...let off oxygen into us,
773 00:51:18 and then we get our energies back.(laughs)
774 00:51:20 -(cork pops)-(jovial chatter)
775 00:51:22 MAN:Here's to us.
776 00:51:24 (cheering, applause)
777 00:51:28 TROSPER: So, we had met our mainmission success requirements: 90 sols.
778 00:51:34 And we start thinking we havemaybe unlimited life on these rovers
779 00:51:40 because the dust devilshave really helped us out here.
780 00:51:42 So let's go, let's hit the road,pedal to the metal,
781 00:51:45 and go see Mars.
782 00:51:51 SQUYRES: We got to sol 90for both rovers, and we had fun.
783 00:51:57 So we were doing rover drag races.
784 00:51:58 I mean, the two rovers werecompeting with each other
785 00:52:01 to see who could dothe most meters on a given sol.
786 00:52:10 With Spirit, we had this disappointment.
787 00:52:12 Like, this landing site is notwhat we thought it would be.
788 00:52:15 ♪ ♪
789 00:52:16 FRAEMAN:But Spirit looked off,
790 00:52:19 and there werethese hills rising in the distance
791 00:52:21 which were named the Columbia Hills.
792 00:52:23 And so, if there's any potential evidenceof drinkable water,
793 00:52:26 maybe we'll find it in them hills.
794 00:52:30 And on the other side of the planet,
795 00:52:33 our lucky rover Opportunitywas on a whole nother adventure.
796 00:52:39 NARRATOR:Opportunity rover diary.
797 00:52:41 What we really need is more bedrockdeeper down in the ground.
798 00:52:45 The closest thing is that big crateroff to the east, named Endurance.
799 00:52:51 SQUYRES:The beautiful thing about a crater is that
800 00:52:54 it's a time-ordered sequence of eventswith the old rocks at the bottom
801 00:52:58 and younger and younger and youngerand younger rocks piled on top.
802 00:53:05 There's scientific gold down there.
803 00:53:08 But we had never intendedto drive a rover down such a steep slope.
804 00:53:16 (whirs, beeps)
805 00:53:17 ELLISON: It's very easyto kill a robot on another planet
806 00:53:20 when you're in a place like Endurance.
807 00:53:23 I would plan to driveas far down as we need to drive.
808 00:53:27 FRAEMAN: The tension betweenscientists and engineers is
809 00:53:29 the scientists are the oneswho want to do the crazy thing.
810 00:53:32 You know, "I want to drive at this
811 00:53:33 35-degree slopebecause that rock is so interesting,"
812 00:53:36 and the engineers are the ones who say,
813 00:53:38 "No, no, that's not safe.You can't do that.
814 00:53:40 This thing you want to dois completely bananas."
815 00:53:42 Frankly, if we can't climbpretty reliably up these rocks,
816 00:53:47 we're not going into this crater.
817 00:53:52 STROUPE:So we built a big test bed
818 00:53:55 with basically a full-scale modelof the rover.
819 00:53:59 MAN:Oh, little slippage here.
820 00:54:01 STROUPE:We tried to simulate the geometry.
821 00:54:03 We tried to simulate the soil.
822 00:54:05 (indistinct chatter)
823 00:54:07 TREBI-OLLENNU: You know,the first time you go to test bed
824 00:54:10 and you just drive straight up,
825 00:54:12 it comes straight down. (laughs)
826 00:54:13 (groaning)
827 00:54:17 STROUPE:So we inched our way down.
828 00:54:18 Or I guess, you know,we should use metric.
829 00:54:20 We centimetered our way down.
830 00:54:22 (whirring, beeping)
831 00:54:24 Very carefully planning the drive
832 00:54:27 to keep Opportunityfrom getting into too much trouble.
833 00:54:38 (quiet chatter)
834 00:54:40 MAN:Did we clear it?
835 00:54:42 STROUPE: So we came back inthe next morning and looked at the images,
836 00:54:46 and you could hear the gaspfrom different parts of the room.
837 00:54:51 The surface around the side of the crater
838 00:54:54 wasn't as grippy as we'd hoped it was,and she apparently started
839 00:54:58 sliding down the hill...
840 00:54:59 (buzzing)
841 00:55:01 ...towards this giant boulder.
842 00:55:04 (alarm beeping)
843 00:55:06 ♪ ♪
844 00:55:12 STROUPE: But we have somethingcalled autonomy built into the rovers.
845 00:55:19 We allow the rover to think for itself.
846 00:55:22 Because the rover knows moreabout the situation on Mars than we do.
847 00:55:29 STROUPE: So, when Opportunitywent down into the crater...
848 00:55:35 ...she noticed that she wassliding too much downhill
849 00:55:38 and stopped just centimeters
850 00:55:41 from the tip of her solar panel.
851 00:55:46 That short of crashinginto this giant rock.
852 00:55:50 Which could've beenmission-ending for Opportunity.
853 00:55:55 We all had heart attacks,but her autonomy saved us.
854 00:56:00 And we were so proudof our lucky rover.
855 00:56:09 SQUYRES:With Opportunity,
856 00:56:11 we had a big, big, big photo printed.
857 00:56:15 It was a north-to-south stripthat was acquired from orbit.
858 00:56:19 And it showed Eagle Craterwhere we landed,
859 00:56:22 Endurance Crater where Opportunity was,
860 00:56:25 and we rolled it out on a table.
861 00:56:30 Way, way down at the end,there was this big crater,
862 00:56:33 you know, kilometers to the south,that we named Victoria Crater.
863 00:56:42 ELLISON:And I know it's ridiculous
864 00:56:44 to take a mission that wassupposed to be three months and go,
865 00:56:46 "So, we've got this crater.
866 00:56:48 We think it'll maybe taketwo years to get there."
867 00:56:52 But we did it anyway.
868 00:56:53 So, first things first.
869 00:56:58 ♪ Ow! ♪
870 00:57:00 ("Walking on Sunshine"by Katrina and The Waves playing)
871 00:57:02 (laughter)
872 00:57:05 ♪ Hey, yeah ♪
873 00:57:08 (over speaker):♪ I used to think maybe you loved me ♪
874 00:57:11 ♪ Now, baby, I'm sure ♪
875 00:57:16 ♪ And I just can't wait... ♪
876 00:57:18 MANNING:So, Victoria Crater was miles away.
877 00:57:23 ♪ Oh, yeah ♪
878 00:57:24 ♪ I'm walking on sunshine, whoa-oh ♪
879 00:57:28 ♪ I'm walking on sunshine... ♪
880 00:57:30 MANNING:But it was a pretty clear shot.
881 00:57:32 There's no hills or mountains in the way.
882 00:57:35 Just these ripples of dust.
883 00:57:37 ♪ And don't it feel good ♪
884 00:57:39 ♪ Hey... ♪
885 00:57:40 TREBI-OLLENNU:So we do what we call blind driving.
886 00:57:44 ♪ Oh, yeah ♪
887 00:57:46 ♪ And don't it feel good... ♪
888 00:57:48 So we told Opportunity,
889 00:57:50 "You're blindfolded.Trust me. Keep going."
890 00:57:53 ♪ I feel the love, I feel the lovethat's really real ♪
891 00:57:55 ♪ I feel alive, I feel the love,I feel the love that's really real... ♪
892 00:57:58 TREBI-OLLENNU: And with blind drive,the way we count progress
893 00:58:01 is the number of wheel turns.
894 00:58:04 ♪ I'm walking on sunshine, whoa-oh ♪
895 00:58:07 ♪ I'm walking on sunshine... ♪
896 00:58:09 MANNING:So, the wheels had turned on the drive.
897 00:58:12 ♪ I'm walking on sunshine... ♪
898 00:58:15 But to our shock...
899 00:58:16 -♪ And don't it feel good. ♪-(song ends)
900 00:58:19 ...Oppy hadn't moved at all.
901 00:58:22 (whirring)
902 00:58:23 MAN:This is the previous day.
903 00:58:25 MAN 2:Went to exactly where it got stuck.
904 00:58:27 It literally didn't makemuch more progress after about this point.
905 00:58:30 But the rover thoughtit was executing its plan
906 00:58:33 as though it were all the way down here.
907 00:58:35 VERMA: So, the entire day, Opportunitywas just spinning its wheels in place
908 00:58:40 and digging itself deeperand deeper and deeper.
909 00:58:44 (beeping, whirring)
910 00:58:56 ELLISON: There's no book that's,you know, "Chapter Four:
911 00:58:58 Extracting Mars Rovers from Sand Dunes."
912 00:59:00 So we built a copy of the sand duneat JPL, stuck her over it.
913 00:59:06 TREBI-OLLENNU: From an engineeringperspective, it was exciting...
914 00:59:09 (chuckles)
915 00:59:11 ...because we like...we-we like a challenge.
916 00:59:14 So it's almost like quicksand.
917 00:59:16 And we spent six weeks tryingto learn how to extricate Opportunity.
918 00:59:22 STROUPE:But the soil had no friction on it at all.
919 00:59:27 It was almost like tryingto drive through cake flour.
920 00:59:32 ELLISON: The engineers decided the onlychance is stick it in reverse and gun it.
921 00:59:47 (whirring)
922 00:59:56 But on Mars, it was getting worse.
923 00:59:59 It looked like we were gettingeven deeper.
924 01:00:01 This could be fatal.
925 01:00:05 NARRATOR:Sol 483.
926 01:00:08 Power has dropped substantially.
927 01:00:11 At the moment, we're just keepingour nose above water.
928 01:00:24 (whirring)
929 01:00:33 ♪ ♪
930 01:00:41 NARRATOR:Sol 484.
931 01:00:44 Long-term drive options are now back.
932 01:00:47 (cheering, applause)
933 01:00:55 MANNING: We said, "Okay,let's be a little bit more conservative
934 01:00:57 about our driving from here on out."(chuckles)
935 01:01:00 And so we carefully drove south,
936 01:01:02 and we finally eventually made itto Victoria Crater.
937 01:01:12 SQUYRES:There was a group of us
938 01:01:14 sitting around a tabledrinking margaritas at a party.
939 01:01:19 And somebody came up with the idea,"Hey, let's have a bet."
940 01:01:22 Picked up a cocktail napkin,
941 01:01:24 and we all wrote down our names.
942 01:01:26 And everybody had to put in 20 bucks.
943 01:01:29 MANNING:We said, "Okay. Who believes that
944 01:01:32 zero, one or two roversare alive next year?"
945 01:01:36 SQUYRES:We kept that same cocktail napkin,
946 01:01:39 and we did it year after yearafter year after year.
947 01:01:46 MANNING: And every year, Steve Squyres,the project's principal scientist,
948 01:01:51 voted that both roverswould be dead in the next year.
949 01:01:55 My logic beingthat someday I would eventually win,
950 01:01:59 and when I did win, it would cheer me upat a time when I'd be feeling sad.
951 01:02:03 (indistinct chatter)
952 01:02:05 MANNING: I voted just the opposite--that both rovers would still be alive.
953 01:02:11 So, actually, I did pretty wellthrough the years in these bets.
954 01:02:23 (whirring)
955 01:02:24 SQUYRES: At this point, Spirit,our kind of hardworking blue-collar rover,
956 01:02:28 was exploring the Columbia Hills.
957 01:02:33 But she had been havingmechanical problems.
958 01:02:40 And then the right front wheel failed.
959 01:02:46 -The five-wheel, five-wheel drive.-MAN: Okay.
960 01:02:52 STROUPE: Somebody said,"This is a lot like that grocery cart
961 01:02:56 with the stuck wheelthat's easier to pull than push."
962 01:03:01 We're like, "Pull!Yes, let's go backwards."
963 01:03:08 ELLISON: So, Spirit slowly drovebackwards through Columbia Hills,
964 01:03:13 dragging this broken wheel as it went.
965 01:03:17 And it was awfulbecause winter was coming.
966 01:03:21 ♪ ♪
967 01:03:26 BOYKINS: So, a Martian winteris twice as long as it is on Earth.
968 01:03:33 (shuddering):So it gets really cold.
969 01:03:35 It gets so cold that you have to usemuch of your energy
970 01:03:40 to keep all of your hardwareabove a certain temperature,
971 01:03:44 or it's likely to break.
972 01:03:47 SQUYRES: At the Spirit site,we desperately needed a way
973 01:03:50 to tilt the solar arrays towards the sun.
974 01:03:54 But the only way to do thatwas to tilt the entire vehicle.
975 01:03:59 ♪ ♪
976 01:04:10 Spirit would have to climb backwards
977 01:04:12 up this rocky, rugged terrain...
978 01:04:19 ...to stay alive all through the winter.
979 01:04:23 (beeping)
980 01:04:30 And it's not just the seasons.
981 01:04:32 You've also got things like dust storms.
982 01:04:36 SQUYRES: Sometimes dust stormswill blow up into a global storm.
983 01:04:41 And this one hit Opportunity the hardest.
984 01:04:47 -NARRATOR: Sol 1,226.-(thunder crashes)
985 01:04:50 Opportunity has beenfighting for her life.
986 01:04:55 Mars took off its glovesand pounded the Opportunity site
987 01:04:59 with record high levelsof dust in the sky.
988 01:05:01 ♪ ♪
989 01:05:03 (thunder crashes)
990 01:05:08 STROUPE: So we had to tweak the rover'sonboard decision-making process
991 01:05:12 so that when the powerstarted getting too low...
992 01:05:17 ...Opportunity could shut herself downto preserve her batteries.
993 01:05:29 (indistinct radio chatter)
994 01:05:30 STROUPE:Nobody wanted to say out loud
995 01:05:32 that we thought the missioncould end at any moment.
996 01:05:37 We could see the dust storm.We could track it from orbit.
997 01:05:42 But it took weeksbefore it started to clear.
998 01:05:48 The original time that was, uh,predicted for the data to come down
999 01:05:52 was 12... 20:40 UTC,but we are a bit tight.
1000 01:05:57 So we actually had a lot of suggestionson morning wake-up songs today,
1001 01:06:01 so I thought I would just continueto play them as we get the data.
1002 01:06:05 (indistinct chatter)
1003 01:06:10 ("Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatlesplaying)
1004 01:06:18 STROUPE:And then we just had to wait and see
1005 01:06:21 if we were gonna survive.
1006 01:06:24 ♪ Here comes the sun ♪
1007 01:06:26 ♪ Doo-da-doo-doo ♪
1008 01:06:28 ♪ Here comes the sun ♪
1009 01:06:30 ♪ And I say it's all right ♪
1010 01:06:37 ♪ Little darling ♪
1011 01:06:39 ♪ It's been a long cold lonely winter ♪
1012 01:06:44 ♪ Little darling ♪
1013 01:06:46 ♪ It feels like yearssince it's been here ♪
1014 01:06:52 ♪ Here comes the sun ♪
1015 01:06:54 ♪ Doo-da-doo-doo ♪
1016 01:06:56 -♪ Here comes the sun ♪-(beeping)
1017 01:06:58 ♪ And I say it's all right ♪
1018 01:07:01 (whirring)
1019 01:07:05 ♪ Little darling ♪
1020 01:07:07 ♪ The smile's returning to the faces ♪
1021 01:07:10 (cheering)
1022 01:07:12 ♪ Little darling, it seems like years... ♪
1023 01:07:15 ELLISON:I don't think anyone expected the rovers
1024 01:07:18 to survive all these disasters.
1025 01:07:20 ♪ Here comes the sun ♪
1026 01:07:24 ♪ Here comes the sun... ♪
1027 01:07:26 You get this feeling of--
1028 01:07:28 there's nothing Marscan do to us at this point.
1029 01:07:31 Like, we've survived everything.We're basically invincible.
1030 01:07:33 ♪ Here comes the sun, doo-da-doo-doo... ♪
1031 01:07:37 But the mission wasn't done.
1032 01:07:40 We were still hoping we would finda place where life could have arisen,
1033 01:07:44 with neutral-pH water, with wateryou maybe could even have drunk.
1034 01:07:48 (song ends)
1035 01:07:50 (wind whistling softly)
1036 01:07:55 (cheering, applause)
1037 01:07:57 Thank you.
1038 01:07:59 -Dr. Squyres.-Nice to be here.
1039 01:08:00 -Thank you so much for joining us.-Yeah.
1040 01:08:02 Now, um, this is a model of oneof the rovers that's on Mars right now.
1041 01:08:07 -That's right.-Which... Is this...
1042 01:08:08 Is this, uh, Spirit or Opportunity?
1043 01:08:09 SQUYRES:Uh, they're basically identical twins,
1044 01:08:11 -so they look the same.-So you can't tell the difference
1045 01:08:12 -between your two children.-Uh...
1046 01:08:14 You're a terrible fatheris what you're saying.
1047 01:08:15 -(laughs)-(audience laughing)
1048 01:08:17 Um...
1049 01:08:18 SQUYRES:So, Spirit and Opportunity's mission
1050 01:08:21 had kind of taken on a life of its ownwith the public.
1051 01:08:27 The traffic once againis heavy today on Mars.
1052 01:08:30 Rovers Spirit and Opportunity still at it.
1053 01:08:32 So far, they have travelednine and a quarter miles
1054 01:08:34 and captured more than 156,000 images.
1055 01:08:38 SQUYRES:NASA does a lot of
1056 01:08:40 wonderful things in space science.
1057 01:08:42 But try to explain gamma-ray spectroscopy
1058 01:08:45 to an eight-year-old-- it's hard.
1059 01:08:49 But a robot geologist--
1060 01:08:52 anybody could sort of understandwhat it was about.
1061 01:08:56 And now exploration and adventure
1062 01:08:59 can become a very largeshared human experience.
1063 01:09:03 (whirring)
1064 01:09:04 MAN:What is he doing?
1065 01:09:06 MANNING:The rovers became a phenomenon.
1066 01:09:11 They represented explorationand curiosity and interest in the world.
1067 01:09:14 Godspeed to the Mars rover,wherever you are tonight.
1068 01:09:17 MANNING:And the more these rovers lasted
1069 01:09:19 and the more promiseof future discovery...
1070 01:09:21 Elbow. Has a wrist.
1071 01:09:23 MANNING: ...people around the world werebecoming really attached to these rovers.
1072 01:09:30 STROUPE:But I don't think any of us fully realized
1073 01:09:32 the impact that we were havingon the public until Spirit got stuck.
1074 01:09:42 TROSPER:My alter ego, Spirit, had a problem.
1075 01:09:48 She already had a broken wheel,
1076 01:09:51 and she had gotten a little bit embedded.
1077 01:09:56 And then another wheel broke,and it was getting close to winter.
1078 01:10:01 (beeps, whirs)
1079 01:10:04 But I figured, knowing Spirit,that she'd figure it out.
1080 01:10:09 ♪ ♪
1081 01:10:11 STROUPE:This mound of rocks,
1082 01:10:14 this may bewhat we're hung on right there.
1083 01:10:18 And both on Mars and in the test bed,as we drive, it does sink.
1084 01:10:24 This first slide here just is an overviewof the energy requirements for Spirit.
1085 01:10:29 Um, the numbers in red are the oneswhere we won't have enough energy
1086 01:10:34 to survive for an extended period of time.
1087 01:10:38 STROUPE: So now it was reallya race against the clock.
1088 01:10:41 We were making very slow progress,but we had to try and try to beat winter.
1089 01:10:46 And we started getting lettersand phone calls from the public.
1090 01:10:52 This real sense of, you know,
1091 01:10:55 we have to dowhatever it takes to save Spirit.
1092 01:11:02 VERMA: And the publiccalled this campaign "Free Spirit."
1093 01:11:06 And it showed us that
1094 01:11:08 humans are capable of forminga connection and a bond to a robot.
1095 01:11:15 NARRATOR:Sol 2,196.
1096 01:11:19 Spirit has been preparedfor her winter sleep.
1097 01:11:23 She is tucked into bed,
1098 01:11:25 and now we all watch carefullyfor the signal or lack thereof.
1099 01:11:32 BOYKINS:As the rover starts to get hypothermia,
1100 01:11:35 she can't communicate anymore.
1101 01:11:41 And then she either wakes upthe next morning
1102 01:11:44 or she doesn't wake up at all.
1103 01:11:51 When the sun came back up,
1104 01:11:54 we'd listen, we try to hear
1105 01:11:58 a whisper, a tone.
1106 01:12:01 Anything.
1107 01:12:04 And we don't.
1108 01:12:11 It did feel like we were,
1109 01:12:14 you know, watching a friend go,in a lot of ways.
1110 01:12:19 I know people think it's weird 'causeI sound like I'm talking about a person,
1111 01:12:23 but even though she wasn't a person,
1112 01:12:25 it was still a huge partof all of our lives.
1113 01:12:31 TROSPER: Spirit was our ruggedand adventurous rover,
1114 01:12:34 and her environment required more of her.
1115 01:12:38 And so maybe it's just becauseI was Spirit's mission manager
1116 01:12:40 and I wanted her to be like me, but...
1117 01:12:43 ...I feel like I connectedwith Spirit in that way.
1118 01:12:52 You know, maybe she was justa little tired, too,
1119 01:12:55 after all her hard work.
1120 01:12:57 ♪ ♪
1121 01:13:16 SQUYRES: At any rate,if we can get something like
1122 01:13:19 a hundred meters out of today's drive,
1123 01:13:22 just project that line that you see...
1124 01:13:24 MANNING: So, by this time,only a handful of people
1125 01:13:27 who were on the design originallyare still left on the team.
1126 01:13:31 So we're in another generation ofengineers who are operating Opportunity.
1127 01:13:37 ♪ ♪
1128 01:13:40 SIEGFRIEDT:Never in a million years did I think
1129 01:13:43 I would be able to work on Opportunity.
1130 01:13:47 When I was in eighth grade,I saw this news story
1131 01:13:52 of Spirit and Opportunity landing.
1132 01:13:56 I was just some small-town girl
1133 01:13:58 in the middle of nowhere in Texas.
1134 01:14:01 But I knew that's what I wanted to do.
1135 01:14:03 I wanted to help find lifeon other planets.
1136 01:14:09 MOOGEGA COOPER:When I was about 17,
1137 01:14:11 there was a naming contestfor Spirit and Opportunity.
1138 01:14:14 (laughs)
1139 01:14:17 I ended up submitting the names
1140 01:14:19 Romulus and Remus.
1141 01:14:22 Their father was Mars, the god of war.
1142 01:14:27 I don't know what I was thinking, but...
1143 01:14:31 that is when my brain was completelyturned on to Mars and space exploration...
1144 01:14:38 ...and eventually led meto NASA's Mars program.
1145 01:14:44 SIEGFRIEDT:When I first started at JPL,
1146 01:14:47 Opportunity was this older rover
1147 01:14:50 that was in her extended, extended
1148 01:14:52 times a thousand mission. (chuckles)
1149 01:14:54 But she is the reasonI started aerospace engineering.
1150 01:14:59 I knew Opportunity was the placeI wanted to start my career.
1151 01:15:03 All stations, this is your TDL.
1152 01:15:06 We will begin the downlink briefingin about five minutes.
1153 01:15:12 (beeping, whirring)
1154 01:15:20 SQUYRES:Now that Spirit's gone,
1155 01:15:23 there's this--what do we do next with Opportunity?
1156 01:15:28 Do we just kind of noodle aroundtill the wheels fall off?
1157 01:15:31 Or do we put our foot on the gasand just go as fast as we can
1158 01:15:35 and try to reach that big crater next?
1159 01:15:40 STROUPE:Miles and miles away,
1160 01:15:43 this huge crater called Endeavour.
1161 01:15:47 It would have the oldest rocks
1162 01:15:48 that Opportunity would'vebeen able to look at so far.
1163 01:15:53 But it was many years away.
1164 01:15:56 And we might not make it,but it was where the next good stuff was,
1165 01:15:59 so we might as well try.
1166 01:16:03 NARRATOR:Sol 1,784.
1167 01:16:09 Opportunity has been trekkingtoward Endeavour Crater,
1168 01:16:12 driving as frequentlyand for as long as possible.
1169 01:16:17 This week, she wonthe reverse galactic lottery
1170 01:16:20 -and was struck by lightning.-(thunder cracks)
1171 01:16:22 Sort of.
1172 01:16:24 She got hit by a cosmic raythat stalled her for a few days.
1173 01:16:29 But she is okay and back to driving.
1174 01:16:34 Sol 2,042.
1175 01:16:41 Opportunity seems to havebecome a meteorite hunter.
1176 01:16:44 She has discoveredthree meteorites so far
1177 01:16:47 on her journey to Endeavour.
1178 01:16:51 Sol 2,213.
1179 01:16:55 -Oppy is in her fourth winter on Mars-(wind whistling)
1180 01:16:58 and the coldest yet.
1181 01:17:00 So, in order to save energy,the rover is sleeping more
1182 01:17:05 to keep her electronics warm.
1183 01:17:09 ELLISON: So we're sprintingand we're sprinting and we're sprinting.
1184 01:17:12 Some days getting great distance,some days not going very far at all,
1185 01:17:15 but we keep going.
1186 01:17:21 NARRATOR: Opportunity is only abouttwo kilometers away from Endeavour Crater.
1187 01:17:26 She'll make landfall at Spirit Point,
1188 01:17:29 named in honor of Oppy's silent sister.
1189 01:17:36 ANNOUNCER:Welcome to the very first Mars Marathon
1190 01:17:40 here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
1191 01:17:42 (cheering, applause)
1192 01:17:45 The Opportunity rover has achieveda marathon's distance on Mars
1193 01:17:50 just a week and a half ago.
1194 01:17:52 (cheering)
1195 01:17:56 ANNOUNCER:Congratulations, everyone!
1196 01:17:58 BOYKINS:So, at this point, we have
1197 01:18:01 well exceeded our warrantyand then the extended warranty
1198 01:18:06 and then the phone callon your phone that says,
1199 01:18:07 "Hey, we'll give you more warranty."We've run past that, too.
1200 01:18:10 ♪ ♪
1201 01:18:13 (beeping)
1202 01:18:16 And Oppy started to show signs of age.
1203 01:18:21 Her gray hair was the dust accumulation
1204 01:18:25 in the crevices between the cables.
1205 01:18:33 STROUPE:One of the shoulder joints
1206 01:18:35 in Opportunity's armstarted getting arthritis.
1207 01:18:48 We ended up realizing thatif we keep trying to move it,
1208 01:18:51 it's gonna quit somewherethat we don't want it to be.
1209 01:18:58 VERMA:So we just kept the arm out
1210 01:19:00 in front of the roverfor the rest of the mission.
1211 01:19:07 And with arthritis setting in,
1212 01:19:10 Opportunity also started to have problemswith the right front wheel.
1213 01:19:18 So, when you were driving it,you had to think
1214 01:19:20 in terms of it always veering offand how you were gonna correct for that.
1215 01:19:30 SIEGFRIEDT:Once she started getting older and older,
1216 01:19:33 Oppy started losing her memory.
1217 01:19:44 She would go to sleep.
1218 01:19:46 (beeping)
1219 01:19:49 And she would essentially forgetall of the science information
1220 01:19:52 and all of what she had donebefore she'd wake up.
1221 01:19:59 And around the same time that Opportunitystarted losing her memory...
1222 01:20:06 ...my grandmother was diagnosedwith Alzheimer's.
1223 01:20:09 And to see my own grandmotherbecome not herself anymore...
1224 01:20:16 -A…-Bicycle.
1225 01:20:19 ...it was one of the hardest thingsto go through.
1226 01:20:24 ♪ ♪
1227 01:20:28 And so when I started seeing Opportunitystart slipping away, too...
1228 01:20:34 ...we had to figure out a way to operate
1229 01:20:37 in this new paradigmof her having amnesia.
1230 01:20:43 (whirring)
1231 01:20:46 And we did so successfully
1232 01:20:49 just by forcing her to stay awake.
1233 01:20:53 So she could send us earthlingsall the data
1234 01:20:55 before she went to sleepand forgot everything she did.
1235 01:21:06 I think Opportunity helped me to really
1236 01:21:09 better deal withmy grandmother's situation.
1237 01:21:15 And to... to understand that part of life.
1238 01:21:25 But she was still the perfect child.
1239 01:21:29 And she kept trying her damnedest
1240 01:21:33 to complete her mission,
1241 01:21:35 to find neutral waterthat can support life on Mars.
1242 01:21:43 ♪ ♪
1243 01:21:46 FRAEMAN:After several years of travel,
1244 01:21:48 we finally started to see the rimof Endeavour Crater rise in the distance.
1245 01:21:53 ♪ ♪
1246 01:21:59 ELLISON: And even though this thingis ten-plus miles wide...
1247 01:22:03 ...it wasn't till we pulled upright to the edge, and suddenly...
1248 01:22:09 ...whack!
1249 01:22:17 FRAEMAN: When Oppy reached the rimof Endeavour, everything changed.
1250 01:22:23 It almost felt likethe start of a whole new mission.
1251 01:22:28 It was a whole new environment to explore,
1252 01:22:32 stepping back tens or hundredsof millions of years in time.
1253 01:22:38 (laughing):So I loved this part of the mission.
1254 01:22:42 NARRATOR:Sol 3,300.
1255 01:22:47 Opportunity is feverishly working tocomplete analysis of the rock Esperance,
1256 01:22:53 which may hold the cluesto an ancient habitable environment.
1257 01:22:57 (whirring)
1258 01:23:00 (beeps)
1259 01:23:09 This is a clay that has beenintensely altered
1260 01:23:12 by relatively neutral-pH water,
1261 01:23:15 representing the most favorableconditions for biology
1262 01:23:19 that Opportunity has encountered.
1263 01:23:25 This was a huge discovery.
1264 01:23:29 Water.
1265 01:23:30 Drinkable, neutral wateronce existed on the surface of Mars.
1266 01:23:37 ♪ ♪
1267 01:23:42 And not only was there water, but it couldpossibly sustain ancient microbial life.
1268 01:23:47 So that is just revolutionary.
1269 01:23:52 SQUYRES:It showed us that the really ancient Mars
1270 01:23:56 was much more suitable for...
1271 01:24:00 the origin of life.
1272 01:24:04 MANNING:This was the Holy Grail.
1273 01:24:07 This is the reason we had gone to Mars.
1274 01:24:10 Oppy discovered Mars was
1275 01:24:14 a wet world very much like Earth.
1276 01:24:19 There were oceans.
1277 01:24:20 Water played a huge rolein its early history.
1278 01:24:22 It completely altered the planet.
1279 01:24:31 SIEGFRIEDT: And Opportunity spent yearsexploring Endeavour Crater,
1280 01:24:36 making incredible discoveriesthat tell that story of water.
1281 01:24:42 So we could go back in time to a planetthat might actually have had life.
1282 01:24:49 ♪ ♪
1283 01:24:52 BOYKINS: A lot of people ask whyI think it's important to explore Mars.
1284 01:24:57 And I think one of the thingsthat will come out of
1285 01:25:00 Spirit and Opportunity's legacyis some of the answers to why.
1286 01:25:07 Mars had water.
1287 01:25:09 What happened to that water?
1288 01:25:11 And can we take the informationand understand
1289 01:25:14 how that could happen here on Earth?
1290 01:25:18 And can we understand our part in that?
1291 01:25:21 Are we doing somethingthat can accelerate...
1292 01:25:26 ...that change here on Earth?
1293 01:25:30 Because that's not somethingyou recover from.
1294 01:25:32 ♪ ♪
1295 01:25:41 (whirring)
1296 01:25:55 ELLISON:So we're 14 years into the mission,
1297 01:25:58 and sol 5,000 only comes along once.
1298 01:26:01 Like, it was a big landmark.
1299 01:26:04 We've got an aging rover.
1300 01:26:06 She's forgetful. She's arthritic.
1301 01:26:08 Cameras are still working.
1302 01:26:10 What can we do?
1303 01:26:12 I jokingly saida few days before sol 5,000,
1304 01:26:16 "We need to take a selfie."
1305 01:26:20 FRAEMAN: So, we'd been seeing Marsthrough Oppy's eyes...
1306 01:26:25 ...but we hadn't seen all of Oppy herself.
1307 01:26:28 Not since she left the planet in 2003.
1308 01:26:31 We've got a bit of data miningahead of us.
1309 01:26:34 ELLISON:So, sol 5,000 planning comes along,
1310 01:26:37 and the science lead pipes up and says,"So, the engineering team
1311 01:26:41 "have this request.
1312 01:26:42 They'd like to take a selfie."
1313 01:26:44 And you could hear a pin drop,'cause the entire science team
1314 01:26:47 is like, "Come again."
1315 01:26:51 We could be using upthe remaining life of the robotic arm
1316 01:26:56 on this act of pure robotic vanity.
1317 01:27:01 STROUPE: We tried to sellthis idea to the science team.
1318 01:27:08 But it's tricky becauseher shoulder was broken.
1319 01:27:12 So we had to figure out a way to getall of the different views of the rover
1320 01:27:18 without moving the shoulder.
1321 01:27:22 ELLISON: It wasn't great,but it was the best we could do.
1322 01:27:27 And I think it was almostthe science team way of saying
1323 01:27:30 thank you to the engineering team.
1324 01:27:32 "This one's on us.
1325 01:27:33 Take the time to take a selfie.You deserve it."
1326 01:27:35 Like, "Let's have a look at this robotyou've made dance for us."
1327 01:27:41 (whirring)
1328 01:27:46 (beeps, clicks)
1329 01:27:51 And so the engineers are taking picturesfrom 17 different angles...
1330 01:27:55 (beeps, clicks)
1331 01:27:58 ...based on the little preview picture
1332 01:28:00 of what they thoughtthe microscope would be seeing.
1333 01:28:04 And with Opportunity's slow,old computer...
1334 01:28:11 ...it takes about a minute
1335 01:28:13 just to take a picture.
1336 01:28:21 We're like, "Refresh.There's nothing here yet.
1337 01:28:23 "Refresh. There's nothing here yet.
1338 01:28:24 Refresh."Bang, all the thumbnails showed up.
1339 01:28:27 Little, tiny, 64-pixel thumbnails.
1340 01:28:32 The images were kind of fuzzyand upside down.
1341 01:28:37 But then we run through it...
1342 01:28:41 ...and there's a picture of Opportunity.
1343 01:28:45 Yes, it was little and black and whiteand out of focus,
1344 01:28:49 but for the first time in,at that point, 14-plus years,
1345 01:28:54 we saw our rover.
1346 01:28:56 ♪ ♪
1347 01:29:12 (quiet chatter)
1348 01:29:17 SIEGFRIEDT:Everybody who worked on Opportunity,
1349 01:29:20 we'd get these emailswith our Mars weather data for the day.
1350 01:29:25 So I looked one day,and it's starting to get really dusty
1351 01:29:29 and cloudy in the Opportunity site.
1352 01:29:32 (typing)
1353 01:29:34 So, this image was taken on sol 5,106,
1354 01:29:40 and you can seethe sun is a big bright spot.
1355 01:29:44 But you can see only three sols laterthe sun has completely disappeared.
1356 01:29:50 Yeah.
1357 01:29:52 This is really scary.
1358 01:29:54 ♪ ♪
1359 01:29:58 BOYKINS:There's this dust storm coming for Oppy.
1360 01:30:02 Now, we've survivedother dust storms on Mars.
1361 01:30:05 Opportunity has survived.
1362 01:30:08 But a few days into it, I think, uh,people began to realize
1363 01:30:12 that it was differentthan anything we've ever experienced.
1364 01:30:16 (wind howling)
1365 01:30:22 NARRATOR: The dust storm that is affectingOpportunity has greatly intensified.
1366 01:30:31 A spacecraft emergency was declared,anticipating a low-power fault.
1367 01:30:36 (beeping, buzzing)
1368 01:30:56 FRAEMAN:And then she went dark.
1369 01:31:02 But we all said, "We know what to do.
1370 01:31:04 "We have our little dust storm playbook,
1371 01:31:06 "and we're gonna try everythingwe possibly can
1372 01:31:08 to reestablish communicationwith Opportunity."
1373 01:31:12 ELLISON: At this point,wake-up songs had kind of went away.
1374 01:31:15 But we then brought the tradition backin the hope that maybe singing will help.
1375 01:31:21 ♪ Jitterbug... ♪
1376 01:31:23 And we would play them every timewe were trying to wake the rover up.
1377 01:31:26 ♪ Wake me up before you go-go ♪
1378 01:31:29 ♪ Don't leave me hanging on like a yo-yo ♪
1379 01:31:32 ♪ Wake me up before you go-go ♪
1380 01:31:35 ♪ I don't wanna miss itwhen you hit that high ♪
1381 01:31:38 (faintly over speaker):♪ You put the boom-boom into my heart... ♪
1382 01:31:39 (wind howling)
1383 01:31:41 NARRATOR:Sol 5,176.
1384 01:31:44 It has been over 60 solssince we lost contact with Opportunity.
1385 01:31:50 It may be weeks before the sky is clear.
1386 01:31:52 ♪ Don't leave me hanging on like a yo-yo ♪
1387 01:31:55 ♪ Wake me up before you go-go ♪
1388 01:31:58 ♪ I don't wanna miss itwhen you hit that high... ♪
1389 01:32:01 NARRATOR:Sol 5,210.
1390 01:32:04 After almost 100 solswithout contact,
1391 01:32:07 the team is waiting with anticipationto hear from Opportunity.
1392 01:32:12 ♪ I wanna hit that high ♪
1393 01:32:16 ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
1394 01:32:18 ♪ You take the gray skies out of my way ♪
1395 01:32:20 ♪ You make the sun shine brighterthan Doris Day... ♪
1396 01:32:27 NARRATOR:It has now been more than six months
1397 01:32:29 since last contact with Opportunity.
1398 01:32:32 The dust storm is finally over.
1399 01:32:35 MANNING:So, I had hopes that she would just...
1400 01:32:38 (makes whooshing sound) ...wake upand say, "Oh, we're-we're alive."
1401 01:32:40 ♪ Everything will be all right. ♪
1402 01:32:43 (song ends)
1403 01:32:46 But it just didn't happen.
1404 01:32:49 SIEGFRIEDT:She has autonomy on board
1405 01:32:53 to wake up at certain times,
1406 01:32:55 and we know when that alarm will go off,
1407 01:32:57 so we earthlings can tryand communicate with her.
1408 01:32:59 So, every day at that time,we would try and try.
1409 01:33:09 NARRATOR: ...we have beguncommanding more aggressively.
1410 01:33:14 We are listening every dayfor Opportunity to talk to us.
1411 01:33:18 (static droning)
1412 01:33:20 ♪ ♪
1413 01:33:27 SIEGFRIEDT: So, NASA declaredwe were gonna try one last time
1414 01:33:32 to try and communicate with Opportunityand wake her up.
1415 01:33:44 ELLISON: We were just staring out ontothe floor of what's called the Dark Room.
1416 01:33:48 That's where we...you know, for a decade and a half,
1417 01:33:51 all the commandshad been sent to both rovers.
1418 01:33:54 ♪ ♪
1419 01:34:02 It's like, "Just wake up.
1420 01:34:04 "We'll make it all better.
1421 01:34:08 And we'll get back to exploring."
1422 01:34:22 (static droning)
1423 01:34:28 SIEGFRIEDT:Seconds go by,
1424 01:34:29 a minute goes by,and at that point, we know.
1425 01:34:35 FRAEMAN:And I just had the most vivid flashback
1426 01:34:40 to landing night,
1427 01:34:42 standing thereas a 16-year-old in that same room
1428 01:34:47 and just realizingwhat I wanted to do with my life.
1429 01:34:50 -(Fraeman chuckles)-(cheering)
1430 01:35:01 But the journey was over.
1431 01:35:07 And it all just kind of hit me at once.
1432 01:35:16 SQUYRES: The operations team said, "Hey,we wanted to give you the opportunity
1433 01:35:19 to pick the final rover wake-up song."
1434 01:35:24 I had never picked a rover wake-up song,
1435 01:35:26 and I really wanted to picksomething that felt right.
1436 01:35:31 And in the end, the song that I picked was
1437 01:35:34 about the ending of a relationship.
1438 01:35:39 And it's... (stifled sobs)
1439 01:35:42 ("I'll Be Seeing You" by Billie Holidayplaying)
1440 01:35:45 It's this feeling of gratitudefor the relationship that we had.
1441 01:35:52 (indistinct chatter over phone)
1442 01:35:55 MER project off the net.
1443 01:35:57 ♪ ♪
1444 01:36:00 ♪ I'll be seeing you ♪
1445 01:36:07 ♪ In all the old familiar places... ♪
1446 01:36:13 SQUYRES:I don't have to tell you guys we get...
1447 01:36:17 emotionally attachedto these vehicles, right?
1448 01:36:19 I... You know, you use a wordlike "love" advisedly, but... (sighs)
1449 01:36:24 we love these rovers.
1450 01:36:27 BOYKINS:As a parent, I'm proud.
1451 01:36:30 We rewrote the history books.
1452 01:36:33 But as a human being, I'm really sad.
1453 01:36:36 Because she was a friend.
1454 01:36:37 ♪ I'll find you ♪
1455 01:36:41 ♪ In the morning sun ♪
1456 01:36:44 SQUYRES: The whole project wasbound together by that feeling of love.
1457 01:36:48 ♪ And when the night is new... ♪
1458 01:36:50 You're loving the rover,
1459 01:36:52 and you're loving the peoplewho you built it with.
1460 01:36:56 You're loving the peoplewho you operated it with
1461 01:36:58 and tended it with you so lovinglyfor so many years.
1462 01:37:04 ELLISON:To each and every one of us,
1463 01:37:06 it has been the privilege of a lifetime.
1464 01:37:09 And, uh...
1465 01:37:11 you-you don't... you don't getan adventure like that twice.
1466 01:37:14 ♪ I'll be seeing you... ♪
1467 01:37:21 NARRATOR:Sol 5,352.
1468 01:37:24 15 years into the mission.
1469 01:37:27 Since the very first day,
1470 01:37:29 when she rolled herselfinto a hole in one at Eagle Crater,
1471 01:37:33 Opportunity has affectionatelybeen called the lucky rover.
1472 01:37:39 And now, after receiving13,744 command files
1473 01:37:45 and lasting 5,262 sols
1474 01:37:48 past her original retirement ageof 90 sols,
1475 01:37:53 Opportunity's incredible journeyhas come to its end.
1476 01:37:58 Good night, Opportunity.
1477 01:38:01 Well done.
1478 01:38:02 ♪ I'll be looking at the moon ♪
1479 01:38:08 ♪ But I'll be ♪
1480 01:38:13 ♪ Seeing you. ♪
1481 01:38:24 (song ends)
1482 01:38:33 BOYKINS:This arc of exploration,
1483 01:38:36 which is anchoredin Spirit and Opportunity...
1484 01:38:41 ...now leads to the next rover.
1485 01:38:44 ♪ ♪
1486 01:38:45 Perseverance will be the granddaughterof Spirit and Opportunity.
1487 01:38:51 Her essence is built on the backboneof those rovers in front of her.
1488 01:38:57 SIEGFRIEDT:Milo, you ready to launch the rocket?
1489 01:39:00 (giggling)
1490 01:39:03 ♪ ♪
1491 01:39:06 I became pregnant with my second childwhen Perseverance was getting built.
1492 01:39:14 And it was almost likethe rover was in a little NICU.
1493 01:39:19 And we were all looking over her--our next baby.
1494 01:39:24 DERROL NAIL: What a beautiful morninghere on the Space Coast.
1495 01:39:28 -I'm Derrol Nail.-And I'm Moogega Cooper.
1496 01:39:30 In the 50 minutes leading up to launch,
1497 01:39:32 we will show youhow this mission will reach
1498 01:39:35 and search for ancient microscopic lifeon Mars
1499 01:39:38 and test new technologiescritical to the ultimate goal:
1500 01:39:40 future human missions to Mars.
1501 01:39:42 MANNING:It's part of our tradition.
1502 01:39:45 Is open up peanuts.
1503 01:39:51 Do you want some?
1504 01:39:53 (indistinct chatter)
1505 01:39:58 TREBI-OLLENNU: Some people thinkplanetary exploration is very foreign,
1506 01:40:02 but I always remind them, you know,when your forefathers walked the planet,
1507 01:40:07 the first thing they did isthey looked to the heavens.
1508 01:40:10 And what did they see?
1509 01:40:12 Constellations and stars,wonderful things.
1510 01:40:15 What did they do with that?
1511 01:40:17 They use the heavens...
1512 01:40:20 to come up with a calendar,
1513 01:40:23 to know when to plantand to know when to harvest.
1514 01:40:26 MAN (over speaker):Flight mission, copy. It's go time.
1515 01:40:28 TREBI-OLLENNU: And they did itfrom the confines of Earth.
1516 01:40:31 So, planetary explorationhas been with us from the beginning,
1517 01:40:36 and we're using it the same way
1518 01:40:38 that our forefathers have donefor generations--
1519 01:40:40 to make life better on Earth.
1520 01:40:43 MAN:Two, one, zero.
1521 01:40:45 (rumbling)
1522 01:40:46 Release and liftoff.
1523 01:40:52 ♪ ♪
1524 01:41:19 ♪ ♪
1525 01:41:41 Milo, look.
1526 01:41:43 -What is it?-Rocket.
1527 01:41:45 -That's right.-(laughing)
1528 01:41:48 And the rover.
1529 01:41:51 SIEGFRIEDT:The rover. That's right.
1530 01:41:52 The rover's inside.
1531 01:41:54 ♪ ♪
1532 01:42:10 ♪ ♪
1533 01:42:42 ♪ ♪
1534 01:43:14 ♪ ♪
1535 01:43:46 ♪ ♪
1536 01:44:18 ♪ ♪
1537 01:44:50 (music fades)