ILM SFX ANIMATION: Oppy slowly emerges from inside Eagle Crater.
DOUG ELLISON: What you really want is nice flowing, neutral pH groundwater. And so to go and find a story of habitability, you’ve got to go on a bit of a road trip.
GFX LOWER THIRD: SOL 57
DOUG ELLISON: But the problem is, these rovers only have 90 days to live.
VANDI VERMA Rover Driver: Rover drivers are those of us who operate the rover on Mars. It’s such a fun job.
But you can’t just use a steering wheel to drive it. Because it takes anywhere from 4 minutes to 20 minutes for a signal to reach Mars. So we send the commands. We then go off and sleep, and then the rover will execute the drive that day. And by the time the drive is done, we come back and we can use the results of that and start planning again. I grew up in India. And when I was about 7 years old, someone gave me this book, which was about space exploration. And I was just blown away. PRODUCTION ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE: VANDI VERMA: “Did you see how close we get to that rock in the beginning?” VANDI VERMA: During the mission, I was pregnant with twins. And so, it was a different way for me to relate to the twin rovers. I thought about these two beings that are so connected and so similar and yet are going to have completely independent lives. The rovers have their own personality. And it’s hard for me to pick which one of them is my favorite. I can’t really pick one, you know, it’s sort of like this twin thing.
JENNIFER TROSPER: In Gusev Crater, Spirit was in a much colder site.
VANDI VERMA, ROVER DRIVER
Opportunity was at the equator, kinda like a vacation spot on Mars. And so, Spirit just had a tougher mission ahead of her.
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