01.29.2022 Written by Dash

 

The Sojourner Rover was the first Rover to land on Mars. Its mission was (as NASA put it) to,” demonstrate a low-cost method for delivering a set of science instruments to the Red Planet.” Straying from its original mission which was meant to last seven days, Sojourner surpassed expectations, eventually shutting down and sending its last transmission on September 27th, 1997, its 83rd day on Mars.

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The twins (commonly known as the Adventure Twins), named Spirit and Opportunity, were launched on July 7th, 2003 and landed in January of 2004. As NASA once again says, their mission was “to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils for clues to past water activity on Mars.” Like Sojourner and the other Rovers, the twins also surpassed their expected designed life expectancy, Spirit is said to have lived 20 times longer than expected.

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Unfortunately, Spirit’s last transmission was 6 years after its landing, on March 22th, 2010, in Troy (A place on Mars). Opportunity outlived its twin by several years but unfortunately, Opportunity, (affectionately known as Oppy) went silent after its battery drained during its last transmission with the space station during one of Mars’s greatest dust storms in 2018.

 

Thus, the twin’s journey came to a close with their mission having been completed with a total of over 300,000 images taken and many different discoveries. The most bitter part of this is knowing that during the dust storm, Oppy sent its final transmission which said “My battery is low and it's getting dark.” 

 

Fortunately, there are still two Rovers still alive and thriving. However, the twins and Sojourner will forever be missed. The future of Mars is still as unknown as it ever was, but thanks to the Rovers we’ve learned enough to know that Mars still has a future.

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