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NASA may prematurely kill long-lived Mars rover with arbitrary wake-up deadline
In a decision with no obvious empirical explanation, JPL’s Opportunity Mars rover project manager John Callas was quoted in an August 30th press release saying that the NASA field center would be “forced to conclude” that the dust storm-stricken rover was effectively beyond saving if it fails to come back to life 45 days after 2018’s massive dust storm can be said to have officially ended.
Below the upbeat-sounding title of this press release is the scarier fact that after tau clears below 1.5, the rover has 45 days to wake up before NASA stops actively trying to revive it. Come on, #WakeUpOppy https://t.co/piCQLeaCEO
— Emily Lakdawalla (@elakdawalla) August 30, 2018
Over the course of that press release, Callas made a number of points that may technically hold at least a few grains of truth, but entirely fail to add up to any satisfactory explanation for the choices described therein. This is underscored in one critical and extended quote:
“If we do not hear back [from Opportunity] after 45 days, the team will be forced to conclude that the Sun-blocking dust and the Martian cold have conspired to cause some type of fault from which the rover will more than likely not recover. At that point, our active phase of reaching out to Opportunity will be at an end. However, in the unlikely chance that there is a large amount of dust sitting on the solar arrays that is blocking the Sun’s energy, we will continue passive listening efforts for several months.” – John Calwell, JPL
Scott Maxwell, a former JPL engineer who led drive planning for rovers Spirit and Opportunity, solidly explained the differences between active and passive recovery attempts:
Because it's a FAQ … "active listening" has two parts: (1) forcing Opportunity's radio, if she's listening, to a particular frequency (because it can drift), and (2) a command to talk to us. Pretty much guaranteed to work if she's awake with her radio on. https://t.co/iaHbHXFKqm
— 🇺🇦ScottMaxwell @marsroverdriver@deepspace.social (@marsroverdriver) August 31, 2018
The JPL press release offers exactly zero explanation for the “45-day” deadline, starting the moment that dust clears from Martian skies near Opportunity to a certain degree, likely to happen within the next few weeks. Nor does it explain why “active” recovery attempts would stop at that point, despite the fact that the PR happens to directly acknowledge the fact that the best time to attempt to actively restore contact Opportunity might be after Mars’ windy season is given a chance to blow accumulated dust off of the rover’s solar arrays.
In fact, while all points Callas/the press release makes may theoretically be valid, the experiences of the actual engineers that have been operating Opportunity and MER sister rover Spirit for nearly two decades suggest that his explanations are utterly shallow and fail even the most cursory comparison with real data.
Thanks largely to a number of comments collected by The Atlantic from past, present, and anonymous employees involved with Opportunity, it would seem that there is no truly empirical way to properly estimate the amount of dust that may or may not be on the rover’s solar arrays, no rational engineering-side explanation for the 45-day ultimatum, no clear excuse for how incredibly short that time-frame is, and essentially zero communication between whoever this decision originates from and the engineers tasked with operating and restoring communications with the forlorn, 15-year old rover.
Most tellingly, this exact impromptu dust-storm-triggered hibernation already occurred several times in the past, and even resulted in the demise of Opportunity’s sister rover Spirit in 2010. The Atlantic notes that when a dust storm forced that rover into hibernation in 2010, JPL mission engineers spent a full ten months actively attempting to resuscitate Spirit, followed by another five months of passive listening before the rescue effort was called off.
Given that Opportunity’s engineers appear to believe that there is every reason to expect that the rover can, has, and should survive 2018’s exceptional Martian dust storm, the only plausible explanation for the arbitrary countdown and potentially premature silencing of one of just two active rovers on Mars is purely political and financial. While it requires VERY little money to operate scientific spacecraft when compared with manufacturing and launch costs, the several millions of dollars needed to fund operations engineers and technicians (roughly $15 million per year for Opportunity) could technically be funneled elsewhere or the employees in question could be redirected to newer programs.
For example, the ~$200 million spent operating the rover from 2004 to 2018 could instead fund considerably less than 20% of the original cost of building and launching both Opportunity and Spirit. This is to say that that cutting operation of functioning spacecraft to save money can be quite fairly compared with throwing an iPhone in the trash because the charging cable ripped because $10 could instead be put towards buying a new phone months or years down the line.
Ultimately, all we can do is hope that Opportunity manages to successfully wake up over the course of the next two or three months. If the rover is unable to do so, chances are sadly high that it will be lost forever once active communications restoration efforts come to an end. With an extraordinarily productive 15 years of exploration nearly under its belt, Opportunity – originally designed with an expected lifespan of ~90 days – would leave behind a legacy that would fail to disappoint even the most ardent cynic. Still, if life may yet remain in the rover, every effort ought to be made to keep the intrepid craft alive.
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News
Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end with no interventions.
A Tesla Model S has completed the first-ever full Cannonball Run using Full Self-Driving (FSD), traveling from Los Angeles to New York with zero interventions. The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end, fulfilling a long-discussed benchmark for autonomy.
A full FSD Cannonball Run
As per a report from The Drive, a 2024 Tesla Model S with AI4 and FSD v14.2.2.3 completed the 3,081-mile trip from Redondo Beach in Los Angeles to midtown Manhattan in New York City. The drive was completed by Alex Roy, a former automotive journalist and investor, along with a small team of autonomy experts.
Roy said FSD handled all driving tasks for the entirety of the route, including highway cruising, lane changes, navigation, and adverse weather conditions. The trip took a total of 58 hours and 22 minutes at an average speed of 64 mph, and about 10 hours were spent charging the vehicle. In later comments, Roy noted that he and his team cleaned out the Model S’ cameras during their stops to keep FSD’s performance optimal.
History made
The historic trip was quite impressive, considering that the journey was in the middle of winter. This meant that FSD didn’t just deal with other cars on the road. The vehicle also had to handle extreme cold, snow, ice, slush, and rain.
As per Roy in a post on X, FSD performed so well during the trip that the journey would have been completed faster if the Model S did not have people onboard. “Elon Musk was right. Once an autonomous vehicle is mature, most human input is error. A comedy of human errors added hours and hundreds of miles, but FSD stunned us with its consistent and comfortable behavior,” Roy wrote in a post on X.
Roy’s comments are quite notable as he has previously attempted Cannonball Runs using FSD on December 2024 and February 2025. Neither were zero intervention drives.
Elon Musk
Tesla removes Autopilot as standard, receives criticism online
The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders.
Tesla removed its basic Autopilot package as a standard feature in the United States. The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders, and shifts the company’s strategy towards paid Full Self-Driving subscriptions.
Tesla removes Autopilot
As per observations from the electric vehicle community on social media, Tesla no longer lists Autopilot as standard in its vehicles in the U.S. This suggests that features such as lane-centering and Autosteer have been removed as standard equipment. Previously, most Tesla vehicles came with Autopilot by default, which offers Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer.
The change resulted in backlash from some Tesla owners and EV observers, particularly as competing automakers, including mainstream players like Toyota, offer features like lane-centering as standard on many models, including budget vehicles.
That being said, the removal of Autopilot suggests that Tesla is concentrating its autonomy roadmap around FSD subscriptions rather than bundled driver-assistance features. It would be interesting to see how Tesla manages its vehicles’ standard safety features, as it seems out of character for Tesla to make its cars less safe over time.
Musk announces FSD price increases
Following the Autopilot changes, Elon Musk stated on X that Tesla is planning to raise subscription prices for FSD as its capabilities improve. In a post on X, Musk stated that the current $99-per-month price for supervised FSD would increase over time, especially as the system itself becomes more robust.
“I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve. The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (Unsupervised FSD),” Musk wrote.
At the time of his recent post, Tesla still offers FSD as a one-time purchase for $8,000, but Elon Musk has confirmed that this option will be discontinued on February 14, leaving subscriptions as the only way to access the system.
Tesla has initiated Cybertruck deliveries in a new region for the first time, as the all-electric pickup has officially made its way to the United Arab Emirates, marking the newest territory to receive the polarizing truck.
Tesla launched orders for the Cybertruck in the Middle East back in September 2025, just months after the company confirmed that it planned to launch the pickup in the region, which happened in April.
I took a Tesla Cybertruck weekend Demo Drive – Here’s what I learned
By early October, Tesla launched the Cybertruck configurator in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, with pricing starting at around AED 404,900, or about $110,000 for the Dual Motor configuration.
This decision positioned the Gulf states as key early international markets, and Tesla was hoping to get the Cybertruck outside of North America for the first time, as it has still been tough to launch in other popular EV markets, like Europe and Asia.
By late 2025, Tesla had pushed delivery timelines slightly and aimed for an early 2026 delivery launch in the Middle East. The first official customer deliveries started this month, and a notable handover event occurred in Dubai’s Al Marmoom desert area, featuring a light and fire show.
Around 63 Cybertrucks made their way to customers during the event:
First @cybertruck deliveries in the UAE 🇦🇪 pic.twitter.com/sN2rAxppUA
— Tesla Europe & Middle East (@teslaeurope) January 22, 2026
As of this month, the Cybertruck still remains available for configuration on Tesla’s websites for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan and Israel. Deliveries are rolling out progressively, with the UAE leading as the first to see hands-on customer events.
In other markets, most notably Europe, there are still plenty of regulatory hurdles that Tesla is hoping to work through, but they may never be resolved. The issues come from the unique design features that conflict with the European Union’s (EU) stringent safety standards.
These standards include pedestrian protection regulations, which require vehicles to minimize injury risks in collisions. However, the Cybertruck features sharp edges and an ultra-hard stainless steel exoskeleton, and its rigid structure is seen as non-compliant with the EU’s list of preferred designs.
The vehicle’s gross weight is also above the 3.5-tonne threshold for standard vehicles, which has prompted Tesla to consider a more compact design. However, the company’s focus on autonomy and Robotaxi has likely pushed that out of the realm of possibility.
For now, Tesla will work with the governments that want it to succeed in their region, and the Middle East has been a great partner to the company with the launch of the Cybertruck.
Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
Tesla removes Autopilot as standard, receives criticism online
