Happy birthday Spirit
Today marks the third anniversary (in Earth years) of Spirit‘s landing on the Martian surface. It bears repeating again and again that this is a mission whose design lifetime was 90 days, and yet both Spirit and Opportunity are still going strong, despite dust storms and all that Mars has thrown at them. It’s hard to remember now, but the buzz around the landing was initially negative. The European probe Beagle 2 had just failed to safely land, and so it was with great relief that we all heard of Spirit’s success. The rover suffered software problems almost immediately, and journalists began to scent another NASA failure story. When I was at JPL a while back the press officer escorting us described photographers queuing up to get a picture of the full scale replica of Spirit in the courtyard as it was battered by wind and rain, symbolising the difficulties the real thing was having on Mars. Since then, Spirit has been nothing but a success.
This image is one of my favourites; assembled from Spirit images by the contributors on Doug Ellison’s Unmanned Spaceflight forum, it shows the rover on top of Husband Hill.
To catch up on its amazing story, can I recommend two of the Sky at Night interviews I’m proudest of, both with the rovers’ lead scientist, Steve Squyers? The first is part of our planetary round up from October 2006 and the second is in our Mars special from last February (3 minutes in).
Less seriously, can I recommend this article from the Onion?
