Watch the documentary 'Good Night Oppy' if you're feeling science-y
Good Night Oppy was an impulse watch, and totally worth it. Currently, it's available to stream on Prime Video.
A documentary, Good Night Oppy follows the lifetimes of the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers and their respective crews. Originally scheduled for 90-day missions, both rovers outlived their missions many times over. The film begins by explaining the reason for a geological mission to Mars: to find evidence of water. It then goes through the approval of the mission and the building of the two rovers before proceeding to the launch and harrowing descent of both rovers to the Martian surface.
Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of the planet. Spirit was surrounded by volcanic rock. Opportunity, however, landed in a crater, and immediately found bedrock and signs of ancient water (acidic water, but still water) on Mars.
Good Night Oppy also chronicles the lives of the people who worked on the Mars rover program. For some of them, their work ended once the rovers were built and deployed. But for others, they faced 90 days of working weird Martian hours. Little did they realize that they would end up working with their rovers for years.
Once the rovers were a few years into their missions, the operations crews decided to drive them as far as they could before they stopped working. Spirit and Opportunity both managed to get stuck a few times, but Spirit was the first to get permanently stuck and lose communication with Earth after 6 years. Opportunity managed to continue for 14 years, and at its 5,000 sol (Martian day) birthday, the crew used its camera to take a selfie.
The film ends with the Mars rover team coming to terms with eventually losing contact with both rovers. By the end of the mission, 14 years later, some of the original team had been replaced. Some of the new crew members were children who were inspired to study aerospace engineering by the launch of the rovers years before.
One of the most interesting things about this documentary are the scenes from Mars, created by Industrial Light & Magic. You forget that you're watching a computer generated rover. It feels like authentic footage from another planet. While the rovers are being built, you see them in archive footage, but they become true characters once they're on Mars.
Overall, I'd say this is one of the best documentaries I've watched in a while. It made me immediately want to check up on how the current rovers, Curiosity and Perserverance, are doing. I haven't been as tuned into space exploration lately as I had been in the past, and this film has recharged my interest in the subject.