Read & Think · Against the Odds

Built for Ninety Days

The true story of Opportunity, the Mars rover that would not quit.

Name

Date

An artist's view of a NASA Mars rover on the rusty, rock-strewn surface of Mars. — An artist's view of a rover like Opportunity at work on Mars. The real rover drove farther than a marathon across this kind of ground. Photo: NASA, public domain.

In January 2004, a robot the size of a golf cart bounced down onto Mars, wrapped in airbags. When the bouncing stopped, it sat inside a small crater — a hole in one, the team joked. Its name was Opportunity. Its makers hoped it might last ninety days.

Opportunity was a rover, a robot car built to drive across another world. It had a twin named Spirit, which had landed on the other side of Mars three weeks earlier. Together they had one big question to answer: was Mars ever a wet world?

Ninety days was not a guess. Mars is a dusty place, and the rover ran on solar panels. Engineers knew dust would slowly coat those panels until sunlight could not get through. No sunlight, no power. No power, no rover.

Then Mars itself lent a hand. Again and again, the wind wiped the panels clean, and the rover woke up strong. Meanwhile it found small round stones, nicknamed blueberries, of a kind that forms in water. Mars had once been wet after all.

So the rover kept driving. It climbed in and out of craters. It got stuck in a sand dune for five weeks and slowly worked itself free. In all, it drove more than twenty-eight miles — farther than a marathon, and farther than anything people have ever driven on another world.

In June 2018, a giant dust storm swallowed the whole planet. The sky over the rover went dark for months. Its last report was simple: power low, sky black. Then, silence. NASA called more than a thousand times, hoping for a signal. None came.

On a last night in February 2019, the team played one final wake-up song out into space — 'I'll Be Seeing You.' Then they said goodbye. Ninety days was the plan. Opportunity turned it into fifteen years.

Source: Facts drawn from NASA/JPL mission records for the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Photo credited on the page.

Built for Ninety DaysComprehension

Check that you read it

Fill each blank with the right word from the box.

Word bank: Spirit · solar · water · storm · ninety

Opportunity's twin rover was named Spirit.
The rover's solar panels turned sunlight into power.
Little round stones called blueberries showed that water was once on Mars.
In 2018, a giant dust storm turned the sky dark for months.
The mission was only planned to last ninety days.

Choose the best answer

Why did the team expect the rover to stop working after about ninety days?
- A. Its wheels would wear out on the rocks.
- B. Dust would slowly cover its solar panels and cut off its power.
- C. Mars is too cold for any robot to survive.
- D. Its radio could only work for three months.
What did the wind on Mars do that surprised everyone?
- A. It blew the rover over onto its side.
- B. It pushed the rover into a crater.
- C. It wiped the dust off the panels and gave the rover new life.
- D. It buried the rover in a sand dune.
Which sentence best states the big idea of this story?
- A. Mars is a very dusty planet.
- B. Machines always break down sooner or later.
- C. Careful work — plus a little luck — can beat everyone's expectations.
- D. Robots are cheaper than sending people to Mars.

Built for Ninety DaysVocabulary

Word cross

Use what you read to fill the puzzle. Every clue is answered somewhere in the article.

1M

A

R

2S

O

3S

I

G

N

A

L

P

A

I

R

4C

R

A

T

E

5R

I

O

6W

A

T

E

R

V

I

E

N

7S

T

O

R

M

D

Across

The red planet where this whole story happens
What NASA hoped to hear after a thousand calls
The bowl-shaped hole the rover bounced into on landing day
What the little 'blueberry' stones proved was once on Mars
The giant dust ___ of 2018 that darkened the sky

Down

The kind of panels that turned sunlight into power
Opportunity's twin, which landed three weeks earlier
A robot car built to drive across another world
It surprised everyone by wiping the panels clean

Built for Ninety DaysCritical Thinking

Now think

There isn't one right answer here. Explain your thinking — the reasons matter more than the answer.

1 · Claim & evidence. The rover lived sixty times longer than planned. Using the article, name TWO different reasons it lasted so long — one the team controlled, and one they did not.

For the teacherStrong answers separate skill from luck: the team built a tough machine (controlled), and the Martian wind kept cleaning the solar panels (not controlled). Bonus insight: the ninety-day plan assumed the dust would win — the plan was about power, not about the machine wearing out.

2 · Cause & effect. Walk through the chain that ended the mission in order: start with the dust storm and end with NASA saying goodbye. What caused each step?

For the teacherStorm blocks sunlight → solar panels cannot charge the battery → the rover goes quiet to save power → months of dark sky → NASA sends over a thousand commands → no signal returns → the team plays a last song and declares the mission complete. Any clear, ordered causal chain is strong.

3 · Your call. NASA spent eight months trying to wake a robot that had already worked sixty times longer than promised. Was that worth the time and money? Make your case.

For the teacherThere is no right answer — the reasons matter. Strong cases weigh the rover's proven habit of surviving against the cost, what more science one old rover could do, and what a team owes a machine that outperformed every promise; or argue the money belonged on newer missions. Look for a claim backed by something from the story.