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It was supposed to remain operational for only 90 days, but instead it worked for over 6 years, producing a huge quantity of images and data that will be the subject of study for a long time to come. An impressive performance for the historic martian rover Spirit, sent by NASA in June 2003 to the southern hemisphere of the red planet, where it landed in an airbag in January 2004.
Despite a mechanical failure of one of its six wheels, the rover managed to continue it's slow march over the surface of Mars, ultimately covering nearly 8 km. But a second failure of another wheel in 2009, while mission technicians tried to guide Spirit out of a hole in the sand, ended its chances of ever moving again. It was therefore limited to use as a fixed science station.
Unfortunately the position of the rover at the time of the breakdown was such that the solar panels pointed away from the Sun, and this stopped the working of the instruments during the freezing martian winter, when temperatures can go below -100C.
Since March 22 2010 NASA technicians have not managed to establish contact with the rover, not even in March this year, that saw the martian summer solstice in the southern hemisphere, when solar radiation would have been at a maximum. Having had no reply from Spirit in the following months either, the rover was declared officially inactive at the start of this week, even though the possibility of future attempts is not ruled out.
So after the historic wander in the base of the crater Gusev and in the Columbia hills, after having observed and analysed various rocks,
meteorites and geological structures, and after discovering that Mars would have been a suitable place for microbial life, Spirit goes into retirement.
Its twin, Opportunity, however, continues its tireless mission on the other side of the planet, and has now covered almost 29 km. But already attention seems to be shifting to their successor, the Mars Science Laboratory, also called "Curiosity", a rover almost five times heavier than Spirit and Opportunity, and much better equipped and sophisticated. This will be launched on 25th November this year and will land on Mars in August 2012. This should be able to give a definitive answer to whether there is, or ever was, life on Mars.
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