February 13, 2019

NASA discussed the status of its Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity in a media briefing at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) Wednesday, Feb. 13, from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

The briefing followed 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 included:

  • Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator, NASA Headquarters, Washington
  • Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
  • Lori Glaze, acting director of the Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters
  • Michael Watkins, director, JPL
  • Steve Squyres, MER principal investigator, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
  • John Callas, MER project manager, JPL
  • Matt Golombek, MER project scientist, JPL
  • Abigail Fraeman, MER deputy project scientist, JPL
  • Jennifer Trosper, Mars 2020 project systems engineer, JPL

Credits

NASA/JPL-Caltech

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