A Thousand Days on Mars

From the start — from the day the first of the two Mars rovers safely landed there in 2004 — Steve Squyres has been warning that their time was limited.

At some point a computer would crash, or a circuit would give out, and one rover or the other would die.

It hasn’t happened. The two robotic rovers were supposed to last for 90 “sols,” or Martian days. As of today, Spirit, the first rover, has survived 1,000 sols.

“It’s pretty amazing, actually,” said Justin Maki, the lead imaging scientist for the rover project. “The rover’s basically in good health, especially considering its age.”

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