14 DAY TRIAL // NASA's two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, landed on the red planet in 2003, to explore the Martian surface and geology. Despite all the technical and atmospheric difficulties they have encountered in their missions, they kept going and were the main actors in a planetary science revolution.
They have been exploring Mars' rocky landscape for more than 1,200 Martian days - much longer than any previous robot to touch down on the Red Planet and they're still going strong. It seems chance is also on their side, as the huge dust storm on the surface is showing signs of cooling down, which will restart the energy deprived probes.
The dust storm on Mars has been going on for nearly a month and is now blocking around 85 to 90 percent of all sunlight to the surface. But despite that, it looks like Spirit and opportunity will live to fight another day. A Martian day, that is.
Originally designed to last only three months, Spirit and Opportunity have continued functioning for 14 times that duration. Nothing could stand in their way, as they were making numerous amazing discoveries, the most important of which proving that liquid water once existed there, encouraging the continued search for signs of life on the Red Planet.
"They've spectacularly surpassed all expectations for what they were going to do," said Michael Meyers, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Indeed, they've done their job really well and the team of scientists behind them deserves a welcome party as big as any astronaut homecoming.
With the rovers still functioning over three years after landing, mission funding has been extended to at least September 2007, when the next Mars lander will be launched. NASA's Phoenix Mars lander is ready to launch and agency officials presented August 3 as the earliest possible launch date, despite a hardware glitch that caused one of its cameras to malfunction and the massive Mars storm that is currently affecting the other two probes on the surface, Mars Spirit and Opportunity.
The two veterans will most probably be used until a major malfunction or a natural disaster damages them beyond control, at which point they will remain on the surface as proof of human ingenuity and engineering skills.