On May 2nd, Squyres and Callas are scheduled to present the mission’s proposal before a Senior Review for an 11th mission extension, to keep Opportunity roving through 2019. As the process goes, the Senior Review will make recommendations to NASA officials, who, in turn, will make the final decision. [Beginning in 2020, NASA is to shift to granting mission extensions every three years as opposed to every two years; hence, this extension will be for just one year.]

For years Opportunity and the MER team have cruised Mars comfortably, though sans bells and whistles, setting records and making textbook-changing discoveries on about $14 million annually. For the tenth mission extension (2016-2018), the budget was cut lean, to less than $13 million. Now the maximum funding that would be allotted for 2019, is further reduced, to $12 million, according to one source.

It’s a budget cut that will likely impact operations and there is, apparently, no negotiating room. Even though this smart ‘bot is 171 months into what was originally slated as a 3-month tour and is still pioneering planetary exploration, still going where no rover has gone before, and still blazing trails for future Mars explorers, robot and human. Even though Mars exploration has dramatically increased in popularity and believability in large part because Spirit and Opportunity sent the Red Planet home, in breathtaking images of landscapes that seem somehow familiar, and stunning images of dawns and dusks, skies of pink, and rust red dunes. And even though this rover is now on the first-ever exploratory cruise through the rim of a large, ancient impact crater, pushing the limits of an adventurous expedition of discovery that has established and broken so many records, and uncovered more of Mars’ secrets than any other surface mission.

The plan for 2019 is to keep roving along the tenth mission extension route, which will take Opportunity down to the interior of the crater, to the benches nearby, and, grim-budget-reaper willing, back out of the crater farther to the south. “We want to complete that plan,” said Callas. “We are privileged NASA officials are talking about giving us another year of funding.”

Optimism, gratitude, and living the mantra “Every day on Mars is a gift,” are assets that throughout the years appear to have helped fuel this team. Those assets are still very much alive and roving alongside Opportunity on Mars.

Deep Dive into April

Opportunity woke up to April at San Juan Pueblo, an outcrop of dark glassy rocks chock-full of holes, what geologists call vesicular rocks. Located in the southern border area of the south trough, the site is named for a stop along the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the old, 2,560-kilometer (about 1,591-mile) trade route between Mexico City and San Juan Pueblo, New Mexico.

The team adopted this naming theme once the rover entered Perseverance Valley last July. The Spanish Southwestern history theme the mission is using right now for naming rocks and outcrops is worth pointing out again. “To my knowledge, this is the first time that Hispanic names and history have been used in any mission,” said MER Athena Science Team member Larry Crumpler, a research curator at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, and Associate Professor, University of New Mexico.