Opportunity’s mission is now at an end, after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars and helping to lay the groundwork for NASA’s return to the Red Planet.

The solar-powered rover stopped communicating with Earth when a severe Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location in June 2018. Its final communication was received on 10 June.

More than a thousand attempts to restore contact were made by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), to no avail.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said: “It is because of trail-blazing missions such as Opportunity that there will come a day when our brave astronauts walk on the surface of Mars; and when that day arrives, some portion of that first footprint will be owned by a little rover that defied the odds and did so much in the name of exploration.”

Designed to last just 90 Martian days (each lasting about 25hr) and travel 1,000m, Opportunity vastly surpassed all expectations in its endurance, scientific value and longevity.

In addition to exceeding its life expectancy by 60 times, the rover travelled more than 45km by the time it reached its ‘appropriate final resting spot’ — Perseverance Valley.

Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said: “For more than a decade, Opportunity has been an icon in the field of planetary exploration, teaching us about Mars’s ancient past as a wet potentially habitable planet, and revealing uncharted Martian landscape.”

More information about the agency’s Mars Exploration programme can be found at the Web site (www.nasa.gov/mars).