On 10th June 2003 NASA launched the Spirit rover, marking the beginning of the Mars Exploration Rover mission (MER), which still continues to this day with the Opportunity rover.
Both Spirit and Opportunity were launched in 2003 (about a month apart) with the main scientific objective of finding clues of Mars’s past water activity. They were both sent to opposite sides of the Red Planet, to locations that were suspected of having been affected by liquid water in the past. The plan was for the rovers to move between various different places, where they could perform geological investigations and take photographs with mast-mounted cameras (about 5 feet or 1.5 meters off the ground) providing 360-degree stereoscopic views of the terrain.
In terms of some of Spirit’s major accomplishments, in 2005 the rover was able to capture several videos of dust devils in motion, providing the best look of the wind effects on the Martian surface as they were happening (see video below). Additionally, in 2007 Spirit unearthed a patch of nearly pure silica (the main ingredient of window glass), while dragging one of its front wheels. This was especially significant since it provided strong evidence that ancient Mars was much wetter than it is now, because the silica was likely produced in an environment of hot springs or steam vents.
Spirit ran into a number of problems while conducting scientific-based research on Mars, the largest of which occurred on May 1st, 2009. While driving south beside the western edge of a low plateau called Home Plate, Spirit became stuck in soft soil. It’s wheels were unable to generate enough traction, after the rover’s right rear wheel stopped working.
By late January 2010, after many attempts to move Spirit had failed, mission planners reformulated the Spirit mission as a stationary science platform.
However, after losing contact with Spirit on March 22nd, 2010, mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) were unable to regain contact.
Although more than 1,300 commands sent to Spirit, NASA officially concluded its recovery efforts on May 25th, 2011. The most probable cause of the loss of contact was the excessive cold that made its survival heaters ineffective.
By the time the Spirit rover had concluded it’s mission, it had travelled about 4.8 miles across the Martian plains. It had operated for six years, two months and 19 days, more than 25 times its original intended lifetime.
The Opportunity rover still operates to this day and continues to send vital information, that helps us to understand the Red Planet just that little bit more.
If you would like to know more about the Mars Exploration Rover mission, I recommend that you visit NASA’s official website. There are some great things on there for those of you who have a particular interest in space exploration.
I really hope you enjoyed reading this blog. I will probably do a few more ‘On this day‘ articles in the future if they are received well. As I have said before, I aim to cover a wide range of history on this website, so please feel free to contact me about anything that you would like me to write about.
The History Bubble 