NASA to Share Results of Effort to Recover Mars Rover

NASA will discuss 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 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:

· 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

You’re encouraged to ask questions via chat or on social media using the hashtag #askNASA.