ILM ROVER CAM VIDEO: Rover POV cam of her mapping the area and hazards.
ASHLEY STROUPE: But we have something called autonomy built into the rovers.
VANDI VERMA: We allow the rover to think for itself. Because the rover knows more about the situation on Mars than we do.
ASHLEY STROUPE: So when Opportunity went down into the crater,
she noticed that she was sliding too much downhill, and she stopped just centimeters from the tip of her solar panel. That short of crashing into this giant rock, which could have been mission ending for Opportunity. We all had heart attacks, but her autonomy saved us. And we were so proud of our lucky rover.
ILM SFX ANIMATION: Bird’s eye drone looking down on Oppy traveling.
ASHLEY STROUPE: We tried to simulate the geometry, we tried to simulate the soil.
STEVE SQUYRES: With Opportunity, we had a big big big photo printed, north to south strip that was acquired for a moment. And it showed Eagle Crater, where we landed,
ASHITEY TREBI-OLLENNU: And the first time we go to the test bedding, you just drive straight up. It comes straight down. ASHLEY STROUPE: So we inched our way down. I guess, you know, we should use metric. We centimetered our way down. ILM SFX ANIMATION: LONG LENS shallow depth of field: Oppy inches downhill, stops, inches, stops. Causing pebbles to roll downhill!
ILM ANIMATED HIRISE: Journey map.
STEVE SQUYRES: Endurance Crater, where Opportunity was.
And we rolled it out on a table, way way down at the end there was this big crater, you know, kilometers to the south that we named Victoria Crater. DOUG ELLISON: And I know it’s ridiculous to think this is a mission that was supposed to be three months and go, “So, we’ve got this crater. We think it’ll maybe take two years to get there.” But we did it anyway.
ASHLEY STROUPE: Very carefully planning the drive to keep Opportunity from getting into too much trouble.
So we came back the next morning and looked at the images and you could hear the gasps from different parts of the room. The surface around the side of the crater wasn’t as grippy as we’d hoped it was, and she apparently started sliding down the hill towards this giant boulder.
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