After 8 months of no contact and thousands of commons sent, the Opportunity Rover has been considered gone. on June 10th, there was a dust storm on the surface of Mars that covered the solar panels of the Opportunity Rover and blocking any sunlight from reaching the surface for Opportunity to recharge its batteries. Last night the Mars Rover team sent out the final commands to try and receive a signal of life from the rover, but no signal came back. What was meant to be a 90 Day mission on the surface of Mars, turned into 14.5 years of exploration for the small rover. Opportunity helped the teams learn how to explore the surface of Mars and the challenges along the way to help make later missions easier, longer, and with more experiments on-board. Opportunity may be lost, but its legacy will live on as a building block to getting Humans to live and thrive on Mars.
Opportunity was launched on July 7th, 2003 and landed on the surface of Mars on January 25th, 2004 and covered more than 28 miles. This rover was one of the most successful and enduring feats on interplanetary exploration, per NASA.