Mars Rovers — Spirit and Opportunity
NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on Mars, with Opportunity far exceeding its 90-day mission to explore the Red Planet for over 14 years.
In January 2004, NASA landed two robotic geologists on opposite sides of Mars. Spirit touched down on January 3 in Gusev Crater, and Opportunity on January 24 in Meridiani Planum. Both were designed for 90-day missions. Spirit operated for over six years before getting stuck in soft soil in 2010. But Opportunity became one of the greatest exploration stories ever told: it drove over 45 km across the Martian surface over 14 years and 46 days — discovering definitive evidence that Mars once had liquid water on its surface. Its final transmission, during a planet-encircling dust storm in June 2018, was poetically interpreted as "My battery is low and it's getting dark." NASA officially declared Opportunity's mission complete on February 13, 2019. The rovers proved that Mars was once a habitable world.
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