VOA常速英语:超额完成任务：机遇号光荣退役

No one at NASA would have ever hoped that the Martian rover Opportunity onboard this Delta rocket launched in 2004 for a three-month mission would end up trundling across the Martian surface for more than a decade. You know, this was a 90-day mission, and we were so excited by just having three months to explore the planet with just a kilometer of capability. But fourteen and a half years later and 45 kilometers of a geometry, we’ve done phenomenal things. We’ve greatly expanded our understanding of the red planet, like finding these blue hematite spheres proved that Mars once had liquid water on its surface.

And it might have gone for another 14 years if not for a run-in with a massive Martian storm. Well, back in June, we were afflicted by a historic global dust storm on Mars had just blackened the skies over the rover and starved the rover for energy and the rover went silent. And we tried valiantly over these last eight months to try to recover the rover to get some signal from it. But no signal came, so after 14 years and a meandering 45 kilometer route across the Martian surface, NASA finally decided Opportunity was gone. It is therefore that I’m standing here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude that I declare the Opportunity mission as complete.
And with it, the Mars exploration rover mission has complete. I stand here surrounded by the team and I have to tell you that’s an emotional time. So long opportunity gone, but not forgotten. Someday perhaps, if humans ever find their way to Mars, they’ll go looking for the little rover that could and did for nearly 15 years.
Kevin Enix, VOA News.