In 2003, NASA sent two robots — Spirit and Opportunity – to explore the surface of Mars. Fifteen years later, Oppy was still roving, as the new documentary 'Good Night Oppy' chronicles.
Oppy and her twin sister Spirit, look like real-life Wall-Es. They each have solar-panel wings to provide power, metal arms to pick stuff up, and a head that swivels with lenses spaced just like a person's eyes. They stand 5 feet, 2 inches, and every morning, NASA's scientists rouse them from an overnight slumber just as they did their human counterparts on manned space flights.
Still, seven months and 300 million miles later, they get to the Red Planet and the real fun begins. The filmmakers have plenty of footage of NASA folks cheering, fretting, and most of all, explaining. The director also employed the digital wizards fromto conjure the scenes on Mars that his crew can't shoot: the rovers, for the first 90 days racing against time as the scientists assume their solar panels will get so dusty they'll no longer provide power.
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