Good Night Oppy
Director/Writer: Ryan White
This 2022 Prime Video documentary isabout the twin Mars’ landers that bounced (remember that touchdown technique?) on separate sides of the Red Planet in 2004: Spirit and Opportunity (Oppy).
Each rover had an expected duration of 90 days: Spirit lasted just over six years until wheel issues ended its mission.
And Oppy – the focus of this documentary – lasted almost 15 years! That’s an endurance record that stands to this day.
The documentary is presented in an interesting format: It mixes live footage/photos, animations of how Oppy moved and what it saw on Mars, and contemporary interviews of the program’s principals (many featured in the live footage from years ago). The interviews added some backstories that a normal live film and voice-over narration sometimes miss. Mad Oppy even “more human.”
For space nerds only, this 1h 45m documentary is a good look back at the remarkable pair of rovers. It’s not as polished as some science documentaries, but it’s still a feel-good film of (mainly) Oppy, that plucky little rover that just kept going and going…