Welcome to Watch
this Space.
I'm NASA Administrator
Jim Bridenstine.
Today I want to start by
celebrating the amazing
accomplishments of our
Opportunity rover on Mars.
Originally planned for
just 90-days, Opportunity
explored the Red Planet
for an astonishing
15-years.
Along with its sister
rover Spirit, which also
far outlived its original
mission, Opportunity
brought us new discoveries
about our planetary
neighbor that will inform
future robotic missions
and even human
missions to Mars.
We gave an update on
the mission February
thirteenth at our Jet
Propulsion Laboratory.
Last night the team
made its final planned
commands.
At the time part of the
team went up to Mission
Control to send up more
commands to ask the rover
to respond.
One-way light time is
about thirteen and a half
minutes.
It took thirteen and a
half minutes to get a
signal up to Mars and if
the rover did respond it
would take another
thirteen and a half
minutes to come back.
To find out more on what
the outcome was from last
night, I'd like to
introduce you to the panel
right now.
We begin with
introductions, our JPL
Director, Mike Watkins,
the NASA Administrator Jim
Bridenstine, and also the
Associate Administrator
Thomas Zurbuchen.
Thomas we'll
start with you.
Thank you so much, I was
there yesterday and I was
there with the team as
these commands went out
into the deep sky, and I
learned this morning that
we had not heard back.
And our Opportunity
remained silent.
It is therefore that I am
standing here with a sense
of deep appreciation and
gratitude that I declare
that the Opportunity
mission as complete.
And with it the Mars
Exploration Rover mission
as complete.
This is a celebration of
so many achievements.
I'll just start by saying
that when this little
rover landed, the
objective was to have it
be able to move eleven
hundred yards and
survive for ninety days
on Mars, ninety SOLs.
And instead here we are
fourteen years later,
after twenty-eight miles
of travel and today we get
to celebrate the
end of this mission.
So its an honor for me as
the NASA administrator to
come out here to this
amazing facility with so
many amazingly talented
people to say thank you
for your great work, not
just for our country, but
for the science that
people are going to be
benefitting all over the
world, their going to be
benefitting from this
science for years to come.
Spirit and Opportunity may
be gone, but they leave us
a legacy, and that's a
legacy of a new paradigm
for solar system
exploration.
A robotic geologist on
Mars and an integrated
science and engineering
operations team here on Earth
all set out together on a
mission of discovery.
They didn't know what they
would find, they didn't
know which direction they
would go, sometimes from
one day to the next,
and they made it work.
And they made it work
longer than any of us
thought possible, by both
brilliant scientific
deduction of where to go,
and brilliant engineering
to keep the rovers alive.
Cheering!
Opportunity hit a
hole-in-one when she landed.
The airbag system rolled
into this small crater
called Eagle Crater, and
when the rover first
turned on its cameras, it
saw that the rim of the of
the small crater was lined
with exposed bedrock.
So we took out our
microscope for the first
time and we took a picture
and the surface of Mars at
that location is littered
with an uncountable number
of little round things.
They were called
blueberries because they
looked like blueberries
in a muffin.
What we discovered was
that those are features
that form in water and
they were a really
definitive sign that there
had been liquid water on
the surface of Mars
sometime in the past.
And after we left Eagle
Crater we went to
Endurance Crater and
that's the crater that we
drove down in.
And there we did what
the geologist call and
in-sequence
stratographic section.
Which is essentially
reading the chapters of
the Martian history
book in reverse order.
That rover became
a stratigrapher.
The first time we had a
stratigrapher on Mars.
We knew we wanted to
go after Endurance to
Victoria.
We put pedal to the metal
and we started heading
there, tens of
kilometers away.
We had to literally surf
across these dunes of
windblown material and the
rover got stuck in one of
those.
We had to get the
rover unstuck.
What we found is that the
best way to get it out is
just to put it into
reverse and gun it.
The rover eventually
popped out.
And so we changed our
driving strategy so we
recognized these
ripples as hazards.
We get to this giant
half-mile diameter crater,
Victoria Crater, and we
want to figure out, gee,
how can we go
into this thing?
All the sudden we
got HiRISE images.
We could see the
rover in the image.
And that was the very
first image that we got,
from space, showing
one of our rovers.
We spent a year scouting
the edge of that crater to
decide where we wanted
to go in to get the best
stratographic section.
We found a place to go
in and we drove down in.
We spent about a year
inside Victoria Crater.
The science team was
really excited about the
idea of driving to
Endeavour Crater, over
twenty kilometers away.
That was a long
drive to do.
It was going to take
multiple years, but they
decided to do it anyway.
There were too many of
these dangerous ripples in
our way and we actually
had to take this
circuitous route that at
times took us away from
the crater only then to
cut back and then approach
it more directly.
And then we pull up to
Endeavour Crater and all
the sudden there's all
these new things to look
at.
We first discovered
the Homestake vein.
It was this very, very
bright linear feature.
It turns out that there
was a big gypsum vein and
we see these gypsum
veins now all over.
So it was our first taste
of what was a really
important process on Mars.
We were driving to a
valley and along the way
there we realized that
right about the point we
were about to get to this
valley that was when we
were going to cross
the marathon mark.
So we said "Well
that's cool.
We're just going to name
this valley after that,
call it Marathon Valley."
That was when we
reached the distance of a
marathon, twenty-six point
two miles on another
planet.
We continued driving
through some slopes down a
little bit on the interior
of the crater rim until we
came back out so we could
continue on to the next
valley, Perseverance
Valley, where the rover
was exploring when
we lost contact.
We said we are going to
operate this vehicle until
the day where we can't,
and that's exactly what we
did and I'm really proud.
We set a foundation that
will serve as the basis
for future exploration.
NASA is committed to
sending humans forward to
the Moon in the next
decade, and this time,
we're going to stay.
We want to establish a
permanent, sustainable
presence beyond Earth as
we push farther into the
solar system.
To do that, we're going to
need the next generation
of lunar landers.
We've already kicked off
that process, and we held
an industry day at NASA
Headquarters on February
fourteenth to discuss
the next steps.
♪ ♪
Today we're highlighting a
broad agency announcement
about putting humans back
on the surface of the
Moon.
And of course you're here
today because one of your,
your company is interested
in participating in this
activity.
And we're very interested
in your participation in a
way that maybe
historically NASA hasn't
involved commercial
industry in the way we're
involving it today.
And I'm going to tell
you why we are doing it.
The President issued what
we call Space Policy
Directive One.
It says that we are going
to go back to the Moon,
and I like to say we are
going to go forward to the
Moon.
We're going to go to the
Moon in a way that we have
never gone to
the Moon before.
We are going to go with
international partners.
We are going to go with
commercial partners.
And here's the key
element, we are going to
go sustainably.
In other words, this time
when we go to the Moon, we
are going to stay.
We're not going back to
the Moon to leave flags
and footprints and then
not go back for another
fifty years, we're going
to go sustainably, to
stay.
With landers and robots
and rovers and humans and
that's what we are here
to talk about today.
We're going to put humans
on the surface of the
Moon.
We're going to build an
architecture where we can
go back and forth again
and again and again.
Another piece of Space
Policy Directive One is
actually using the
resources of the Moon.
It was discovered back
in 2008 that there was
potentially water ice on
the surface of the Moon.
In 2009 NASA did a study
and we've now discovered
that there's hundreds of
billions of tons of water
ice on the surface
of the Moon.
So, new American policy,
we're going to utilize the
resources of the Moon.
Water ice represents
oxygen, air to breath.
It represents water to
drink, in other words,
life support.
But it also represents
rocket fuel, hydrogen and
oxygen is the same fuel
that powers the Space
Shuttle.
So all of that is abundant
in hundreds of billions of
tons at the poles
of the Moon.
So we're going to back to
the Moon, we're going to
go forward to the Moon,
we're going to go with
international partners,
and with commercial
partners, we're going
to go sustainably.
We're going to utilize the
resources of the Moon.
We're going to
retire risk.
We're going to
prove technology.
And then we are going to
take as much of this as
possible and
replicate it at Mars.
And this all part of the
President's Space Policy
Directive One, that we
here at NASA are charged
with moving out on.
And friends, we're
moving out very quickly.
This is the beginning
where we really want, Jim
and I wanted to kick off
and kind of show you the
bigger architecture the
things we're planning and
how we think this is very
different that what we did
before when we went to
the Moon with humans.
This really sustainable,
this is going to be fast,
we are going to need the
best and brightest from
you in industry, we're
going to need the best and
brightest from the
international partner
community to pull
all this off.
And we've got a great
plan to do this.
It all fits under Space
Policy Directive One with
sustainability, it
fits under that.
Win cooperation with
industry, commercial
partners and also
international partners.
I want to thank the entire
NASA family for their hard
work as we push the
boundaries of human
exploration, As we make
new discoveries about our
Earth, our solar system
and the universe beyond,
as we improve flight, and as
we innovate new technologies.
It's an exciting time
and there's a lot on our
plate, but I know we'll
continue to rise to the
challenge.
Thank you again for
watching. Check out
nasa.gov/watchthisspace
and follow me on Twitter
@JimBridenstine.
Ad Astra.
♪ ♪
