Roughly eight months after it fell silent during a planet-wide Martian dust storm, and just weeks after celebrating its 15th anniversary on the red planet, NASA is finally saying goodbye to the Opportunity rover.
The space agency has made hundreds of attempts to contact the rover since it powered down back in June, when dark skies prevented its solar battery from charging.
In a last-ditch effort, NASA sent out a final set of commands on Tuesday in hopes it might finally respond.
But once again, their calls were met only with silence.
NASA confirmed the grim news in a press conference Wednesday afternoon, where it officially bade farewell to the long-running Mars exploration mission.
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The agency made one final attempt to contact Opportunity Rover (pictured) eight months after the spacecraft last made contact. A giant dust storm blocked sunlight from Mars in 2018, stopping Opportunity's solar-powered batteries from being able to recharge
'I’m standing here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude, as I declare the Opportunity mission as complete - and with it the Mars exploration mission as compete,' Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said during the Wednesday press conference.
'I will never forget the amazing work that happened here, it transformed our understanding of the red planet.'
The Mars rover, affectionately known as ‘Oppy,’ far surpassed the expectations of the team that’s operated it for so long.
It was designed to last just 90 Martian days (90 sols), during which it would travel a total of 1,000 meters (1100 yards).
But somehow, Oppy survived 14-and-a-half years after touching down on the red planet, pushing its limits to travel almost 30 miles to reshape our understanding of Mars.
It withstood years of extreme temperatures and radiation, but finally met its match this past spring, when a planet-wide dust storm encircled Mars and blotted out the sun.
This proved to be a fatal blow for Opportunity, as the rover relies entirely on solar energy to power its instruments.
Opportunity fell silent back in June, with no way to power its solar battery as dust continued to block out the sun. The animation shows how the rover (centre) was directly in the path of the raging storm
More than 1,000 recovery commands have been sent to the rover in a bid to revive the esteemed machine.
The last signal successfully beamed from the $400 million (£311 million) solar-powered rover was on June 10, 2018.
In August, NASA set a 45 day deadline to declare 'Oppy' dead if no response was heard from the aircraft.
In October, this deadline was extended to January to re-evaluate the situation.
Sadly, the space agency decided it can delay the inevitable no more and today will be forever etched in the annals of time as the date NASA abandoned hope of salvaging Opportunity.
Dr Tanya Harrison took to Twitter to talk about the profound sadness felt by herself, the Opportunity team and the wider scientific community when the nomadic rover failed to respond to the final contact attempts from scientists
The weary Martian nomad will now rest, alone, in Mars' Perseverance Valley.
It retires with an a admirable 5,352 sols under its belt. That is a total of five thousand, three hundred, and fifty-two days on Mars.
In this time it racked up 28 miles (45
