If NASA's long-silent Opportunity rover could phone home one last time to sing a sweet, sentimental song to its Earthly overlords from its dusty grave on the Red Planet, it might go a little something like this.
In a music video for her new single "Opportunity," singer-songwriter Foxanne pays tribute to the iconic Mars rover, which bit the dust last year after a record-breaking 15-year streak on the Red Planet. (Full disclosure: Foxanne, whose real name is Chelsea Gohd, is also a staff writer at Space.com.)
NASA lost contact with Opportunity in June 2018 when a raging dust storm smothered its solar panels, leaving them too dirty to absorb enough sunlight to charge its batteries. The agency officially declared Opportunity dead on Feb. 13, 2019, after more than eight nerve-racking months of waiting for the rover to show some sign of life.
Video: Foxanne - Opportunity (NASA's Mars rover Opportunity song)
Related: These are the last photos NASA's Opportunity rover took on Mars
😭 y'all the first single from my debut LP is OUTHere's Opportunity, inspired by @NASA's brave rover@AndrewFuncheon at slaying the percussion every timeDoug Gallo at @AglSounds @elaine_rasnake at daughterboard audio@morganhsang on the video editinghttps://t.co/3AyW0tgQi1October 9, 2020
"This song is written from the perspective of NASA's Mars Opportunity rover which, as you know, ended its extended mission on Mars after a devastating dust storm covered its solar array. When this happened, it was surprisingly emotional thinking of this little rover, so many millions of miles away, shutting down alone on the Red Planet," Foxanne said. "Everyone seemed to have such a strong emotional response to it and I was like, dang, I should probably write a song about this."
The song's lyrics — "Oh I'm getting tired/ my battery's low/ please say you'll come find me/ bring me back home" — paint a tear-jerking image of a weak and lonely rover calling out for its parents (mission staff at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California) to come save it from a dusty demise.
Related: Wake up, Opportunity! NASA's awesome playlist for Mars rover
Unfortunately for Opportunity, NASA has no plans to visit the stranded rover, and a mission to bring the rover back to Earth is even more unlikely. Even if NASA sent one of its other Mars rovers to visit Opportunity — a trek that could take years — they aren't equipped to do rover repair jobs. Perhaps humans can one day visit Opportunity on Mars, but the first crewed missions to the Red Planet aren't expected to launch until the mid-2030s.
"Maybe we'll get a Mark Watney situation like 'The Martian,' and there will be some astronaut growing potatoes on Mars, and they'll be like, 'Oh man, Opportunity's around here somewhere, we gotta go find him," Foxanne said.
The single will appear on Foxanne's debut studio LP "It's real (I knew it)," which will be released Dec. 4. It is currently available to stream and download on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, Amazon Music, SoundCloud, Tidal and Pandora. You can even find Foxanne's music on Tik Tok and make your own video with the song.
Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her on Twitter @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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