NASA HQ News: NASA to Share Results of Effort to Recover Mars Opportunity Rover

February 12, 2019
MEDIA ADVISORY M19-007
NASA to Share Results of Effort to Recover Mars Opportunity Rover

Illustration of a NASA Mars Exploration Rover at work on Mars. Opportunity was the second of two Mars Exploration Rovers to land on the Red Planet in 2014 to search for signs of past life.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA will discuss the status of its Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity in a media briefing at 2 p.m. EST (11 a.m. PST) Wednesday, Feb. 13, from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. The briefing will air live on NASA Television, the agency's website and YouTube.

The briefing will follow NASA’s last planned attempts to communicate with Opportunity late Tuesday evening. The solar-powered rover last communicated with Earth June 10, 2018, as a planet-wide dust storm was blanketing the Red Planet.

Briefing participants will include:

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
Lori Glaze, acting director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division
Michael Watkins, JPL director
Steve Squyres, MER principal investigator at Cornell University
John Callas, MER project manager
Matt Golombek, MER project scientist
Abigail Fraeman, MER deputy project scientist
Jennifer Trosper, Mars 2020 project systems engineer
Media who would like to attend the briefing must make arrangements in advance with Elena Mejia of JPL Media Relations at elena.mejia@jpl.nasa.gov or 818-354-5011. Valid media credentials are required, and non-U.S. citizens must bring a valid passport. To participate by phone, media should RVSP to Mejia with their name and affiliation by 1 p.m. EST (10 a.m. PST) Wednesday, Feb. 13.

The public can ask questions on social media using the hashtag #askNASA or by leaving a comment in the chat section on YouTube.

A recording of the briefing will be available shortly after its conclusion at:

http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl

NASA's twin robot geologists, Spirit and Opportunity, landed on the Mars in 2004 in search of answers about the history of water on the planet. Spirit concluded its mission in 2010. JPL manages Spirit and Opportunity for NASA.

For more information about the Mars Exploration Rover program, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer

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