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That said, it had not all been plain rolling. Opportunity had spent a few harrowing sols stuck in sand at Purgatory Ripple; later, one of its steering motors failed. While it was exploring Victoria it was caught in a global dust-storm that cut it off from Earth and covered its solar panels with dirt. Happily, though, the same winds that drove the storms also blew the panels clean, or cleaner, after their passing. A joint in the shoulder of its robot arm, dicky since the mission started, finally seized up.
話雖如此，事情并非一帆風順。“機遇號”用了數個火星日才擺脫“煉獄沙丘”；再然后，有一個轉向馬達壞了。在探索維多利亞州的過程中，“機遇號”遭遇了一場火星沙塵暴，致使與地球失聯，太陽能電池板上布滿了灰塵。不過，令人高興的是，引起沙塵暴的風，也能將太陽能電池板吹干凈。自開始執行任務以來，其機械手臂上的一個關節就很脆弱，最終停止運轉。
On March 30th 2011, Sol 2,155 of its mission to Gusev, Spirit failed to check in with Earth by radio as scheduled; it was never heard from again. Opportunity continued its long trek to Endeavour crater, 1,000 times larger than the crater in which it had started off. The point where it reached the rim was named Spirit Point, in memoriam. On August 6th 2012 a newer, bigger rover, Curiosity, landed at the foot of Aeolis Mons, thousands of kilometres away. Opportunity looked after itself for nine days to allow the scientists and engineers to make a fuss of the newcomer, then set out to study the intriguing smectite clays that a European orbiter had detected on Cape York, a peak further along Endeavour’s rim.
2011年3月30日，第二個太陽日，勇氣號在飛往古謝夫的任務中，未能如期通過無線電與地球取得聯系；從此再無消息。“機遇號”繼續長途跋涉，來到“奮進”隕石坑，比它出發時的隕石坑大1000倍。為紀念，到達的隕坑邊界被稱為“勇氣點”。2012年8月6日，一輛更新、更大的火星車“好奇號”在數千公里外的埃奧里斯蒙斯山腳下著陸。在科學家和工程師們一直對新布置的好奇號更加上心時，“機遇號”自己行進了9天，然后開始研究一顆歐洲人造衛星在約克角發現的有趣的蒙脫石粘土，約克角是“奮進”隕石坑邊緣更遠的山峰。
In Perseverance Valley
身處“毅力谷”
As the unexpected years went by, Opportunity continued along the hilly rim of Endeavour until it came to Perseverance Valley, which cuts through towards the crater floor. It was heading down the valley when, on June 10th 2018—Sol 5,111, well over seven Martian years of service—another dust storm cut it off from Sun and Earth. When, after months, the global storm subsided, the rover’s minders, now family, waited for its solar panels to be blown clean. It appears they were not. After over 1,000 messages attempting to restore contact, Opportunity was declared lost on February 12th.
隨著計劃外使用時間的流逝，“機遇號”繼續沿著“奮進”隕石坑邊緣前進，一直走到“毅力谷”，“毅力谷”直通火山口底部。2018年6月10日，第5111個火星日，已經工作了7個火星年的“機遇號”正沿著山谷行進，另一場沙塵暴損壞了其太陽能組件，也切斷了與地球的聯系。數月之后，這場全球性的風暴終于平息，”機遇號”的負責人員（現在成了家人），等待太陽能電池板被風吹干凈。而事實并未如期。在向”機遇號”發送了超1000條消息試圖取得聯系后，于2月12日正式宣布”機遇號”失聯。
If more than a handful of people ever get to explore Mars in person, surely one day someone will follow its tracks down Perseverance, looking for the mast on which its cameras are mounted—separated for stereoscopy, easily anthropomorphised—to honour a pioneer who travelled far and provided insight after insight into the history of Mars. Until then, imagine her as she was photographed by the orbiting HiRise camera after first reaching the scalloped rim of Victoria, looking down onto its rolling dunes: a tiny speck perched on a promontory peak, a new planet swimming before her eagle eyes, watched in silence from the skies.
如果更多人親自探索過火星，那么毫無疑問總有一天有人將會追尋“機遇號”在“毅力谷”的蹤跡，尋找安裝了攝像頭的桅桿——分離達到了立體視覺效果，容易出現擬人的效果——這都是為了紀念一位在深入了解火星歷史后遠赴火星并提供寶貴資料的先驅者。在那之前，想象一下，當她第一次到達維多利亞環形山的扇形邊緣時，俯視著起伏的沙丘，軌道上的"高分辨率制圖科學實驗"相機拍攝到了這一幕：一個微小的斑點棲息在海角的山峰上，一顆新的行星在她鷹般銳利的眼睛前游動，就這樣在天空中靜靜注視著。
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