Mars Exploration Rover

Mars Exploration Rover, either of a pair of U.S. robotic vehicles that explored the surface of Mars from January 2004 to June 2018. The mission of each rover was to study the chemical and physical composition of the surface at various locations in order to help determine whether water had ever existed on the planet and to search for other signs that the planet might have supported some form of life.

The twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, were launched on June 10 and July 7, 2003, respectively. Spirit touched down in Gusev crater on January 3, 2004. Three weeks later, on January 24, Opportunity landed in a crater on the equatorial plain called Meridiani Planum, on the opposite side of the planet. Both six-wheeled 174-kg (380-pound) rovers were equipped with cameras and a suite of instruments that included a microscopic imager, a rock-grinding tool, and infrared, gamma-ray, and alpha-particle spectrometers that analyzed the rocks, soil, and dust around their landing sites.

The landing sites were chosen because they appeared to have been affected by water in Mars’s past. Both rovers found evidence of past water; perhaps the most dramatic was the discovery by Opportunity of rocks that appeared to have been laid down at the shoreline of an ancient body of salty water.

Each rover was designed for a nominal 90-day mission but functioned so well that operations were extended several times. NASA finally decided to continue operating the two rovers until they failed to respond to commands from Earth. In August 2005 Spirit reached the summit of Husband Hill, 82 metres (269 feet) above the Gusev crater plain. Spirit and Opportunity continued to work even after a significant Martian dust storm in 2007 coated their solar cells. Opportunity entered Victoria crater, an impact crater roughly 800 metres (2,600 feet) in diameter and 70 metres (230 feet) deep, on September 11, 2007, on the riskiest trek yet for either of the rovers. On August 28, 2008, Opportunity emerged from Victoria crater and set off on a 12-km (7-mile) journey to the much larger (22 km [14 miles] in diameter) Endeavour crater.

In May 2009 Spirit became stuck in soft sandy soil; its wheels were unable to gain any traction. Scientists on Earth strove for months to free the rover, sending it commands to move in various directions, but without success, and in January 2010 NASA decided that Spirit would work from then on as a stationary lander. The rover had traveled more than 7.7 km (4.8 miles) in its mobile lifetime. On March 22, 2010, Spirit ceased transmitting to Earth, and NASA considered it to be dead. By that time its twin, Opportunity, had driven more than 20 km (12.4 miles).

Opportunity continued to explore the Martian surface. The rover arrived at the edge of Endeavour crater on August 9, 2011, and traveled along the crater rim for the rest of its mission. In June 2018 a planetwide dust storm covered Mars, and the last transmission from Opportunity was received on June 10. In February 2019, after months of unsuccessful attempts to contact Opportunity, NASA announced that the rover was dead. Opportunity had covered 45 km (28 miles) over 14 years, which were records for distance driven and mission time spent on another planet.