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Massive storm on Mars downs NASA’s Opportunity Rover after 14 years on the red planet
NASA recently held a press conference about the current status of the Opportunity Rover (or Oppy, as it is fondly called), which is weathering a massive storm covering a quarter of the Red Planet’s surface. According to NASA, communication with Opportunity remains down as of date, though the space agency is optimistic that the 14-year-old rover can still make it through the storm.
The massive storm currently affecting Mars covers 15.8 million square miles (41 million square kilometers), which is roughly the size of North America and Russia combined. The intensity of the storm has effectively blocked the sunlight on Mars’ surface, preventing Opportunity to charge its batteries. The rover is currently near the center of the storm, inside the Red Planet’s Perseverance Valley. NASA is under the assumption that Opportunity’s batteries have dipped below 24 volts, causing the machine to enter low power fault mode. In this state, all of Opportunity’s subsystems except its mission clock are turned off. During NASA’s press conference, John Callas, Opportunity’s project manager, stated that the rover’s present state invokes concern.
“The analogy I would use right now is it’s like you have a loved one in a coma in the hospital. The doctors are telling you that you’ve just got to give it time and she’ll wake up, all the vital signs are good, so it’s just waiting it out — but you know, if it’s your 97-year-old grandmother you’re going to be very concerned. And we are. By no means are we out of the woods here,” he said.
Opportunity has been on the Red Planet for close to 15 years, far more than the duration of its original 90-day mission. As of January 2018, the rover has managed to cover a distance of 45.09 kilometers (28.02 miles), studying Mars’ terrain and laying the foundations for missions to come. Opportunity was sent to the Red Planet with its sister rover, Spirit. While both machines were able to last far beyond their initial 90-day mission, Spirit ultimately fell silent in 2010, six years into its exploration of the Martian landscape.
Overall, it would be truly sad to lose Opportunity after such a long and storied life, but the near future will be filled with many new robotic Martians striving to uncover the Red Planet’s mysteries. After all, Opportunity, as well as Spirit and the larger, nuclear-powered Curiosity rover (which is also experiencing reduced solar energy due to the massive storm), have all but laid the foundations for further and more ambitious missions on the Red Planet. Plans are already underway to develop and launch Mars 2020, a rover based on Curiosity, and ExoMars, a rover from Europe — both of which would be tasked to find signs of life. Mars Insight, a robotic lander designed to study the interior of the Red Planet, has also been launched last May and is expected to land sometime in November.
Despite the challenge facing Opportunity right now, however, Jim Watzin, the director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, stated that NASA is still hoping the nearly 15-year-old rover will somehow survive.
“We’re all pulling for Opportunity. As you know, it’s been a remarkably resilient rover, lasting 15 years — well beyond its original design life of just 90 days. Its longevity has taught us much about operating on the surface of Mars. But regardless of how this turns out, this little rover has proven to be an invaluable investment that has greatly increased our ability to explore the Red Planet,” he said.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship V3 gets launch date update from Elon Musk
The first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX’s next Starship launch, Flight 12, is expected in about six weeks. This suggests that the first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
In a post on X, Elon Musk stated that the next Starship launch is in six weeks. He accompanied his announcement with a photo that seemed to have been taken when Starship’s upper stage was just about to separate from the Super Heavy Booster. Musk did not state whether SpaceX will attempt to catch the Super Heavy Booster during the upcoming flight.
The upcoming flight will mark the debut of Starship V3. The upgraded design includes the new Raptor V3 engine, which is expected to have nearly twice the thrust of the original Raptor 1, at a fraction of the cost and with significantly reduced weight. The Starship V3 platform is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability.
The Starship V3 Flight 12 launch timeline comes as SpaceX pursues an aggressive development cadence for the fully reusable launch system. Previous iterations of Starship have racked up a mixed but notable string of test flights, including multiple integrated flight tests in 2025.
Interestingly enough, SpaceX has teased an aggressive timeframe for Starship V3’s first flight. Way back in late November, SpaceX noted on X that it will be aiming to launch Starship V3’s maiden flight in the first quarter of 2026. This was despite setbacks like a structural anomaly on the first V3 booster during ground testing.
“Starship’s twelfth flight test remains targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” the company wrote in its post on X.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
Tesla gives its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent
