While Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix, and Curiosity seemingly improved the odds for landers, getting a spacecraft safely through the “six minutes of terror” (as NASA refined the phrase) and to the surface is still rocket science.

“It’s different every time,” Rob Manning told the MER Update years ago. Currently the Chief Engineer for the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) Project, MER Update readers remember Manning as the rocket scientist who led MER’s Entry Descent and Landing (EDL) team, as well as Pathfinder's EDL team, and who later served as Chief Engineer for the Mars Program at JPL, and for the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity mission.

Every time a spacecraft commits to diving into Mars’ atmosphere, only this much is certain: a harrowing ride has just begun. There is little to no margin of error on these missions. And yet a team, a group of engineers and scientists can do every single thing right and Mars can change the outcome in an instant. Whatever happened to Schiaparelli, the lander did not survive to complete its mission and ESA will have to take in the lessons learned and try again.

Although the sky over Endeavour Crater got a little hazier in October, Opportunity escaped the potential wrath of the Martian spring and worked through another month under “storm-free skies,” according to the Mars Weather Reports produced by the Malin Space Science System group that operates the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) onboard MRO.

Meanwhile, James Shirley, a planetary scientist at JPL, who has been studying the historical pattern of dust storms on Mars, published a prediction October 5th that points to Mars experiencing a global dust storm in the next few months. Shirley’s 2015 paper in the journal Icarus reported finding a pattern in the occurrence of global dust storms when he factored in a variable linked to the orbital motion of Mars.

The MER mission last suffered a planet-circling dust storm in June–July 2007. Opportunity was literally pummeled by the storm and there were some long sols and nights when there was deep concern the rover would not make it. But true to her MER mettle, Opportunity managed somehow to shake off the dust and carry on.

So far this Martian spring “the rover has experienced no dust storms,” said Callas. “The Godzilla dust storm for Mars seems to be kind of like the Godzilla of El Niños predicted for California.”

That Godzilla of El Niños never arrived in California. However: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” as Yankee philosopher Yogi Berra put it. And, the Chicago Cubs did just win the World Series.

In other words, there are still weeks to go. According to Shirley’s prediction: Mars reached the midpoint of its current dust storm season on October 29th. “Based on the historical pattern found,” it is “very likely that a global dust storm will begin within a few weeks or months of this date.”

Truth be told, the MER team “actually packed sandbags around the doorway to the rover testbed” in preparation for the Godzilla El Niño predicted for California, said Callas. For good reason. Had the prediction occurred, the story could have been devastatingly different – and the MER team could not be the workaround champions in the realm of planetary science without being prepared for any thing and every thing.

On Mars, Opportunity, robotically undaunted, roved on, easily completing her investigation of Spirit Mound as the Sun set on October. “After finishing up measurements on some normal looking rocks, we decided to drive to top of Spirit Mound,” said Ray Arvidson, Deputy Principal Investigator, of Washington University St. Louis. “We wanted to look around and take images, just like we would if we were there in the field.”

As the ghosts and witches and goblins, the super heroes, creepy clowns and devils took to the streets on All Hallow’s Eve, Opportunity was near the top of Spirit Mound. In the quiet of Endeavour’s western rim, the robot field geologist looked out over Endeavour Crater and drank it in.

On leaving Marathon Valley, the rover hiked downhill to Spirit Mound in hopes of finding more of the most ancient Martian ground or bedrock as she descended, theoretically, back in geological time. The MER mission discovered this ancient ground in 2012 with bedrock dubbed Whitewater Lake at the base of Matijevic Hill, and identified and categorized as Matijevic Formation in 2013 in honor of rover pioneer Jake Matijevic, a member of the original design team at JPL and a former MER Chief Engineer. It was the oldest Martian ground any surface mission had ever discovered and the scientists have hypothesized that it dates back to the Noachian Period some 3.7 to 4.2 billion years ago.