This NASA Rover Should've Died In 90 Days, But Opportunity Has Now Seen 5,000 Sunrises On Mars

This past Saturday, NASA Opportunity rover on Mars celebrated an incredibly important milestone in the history of space travel. The mechanical martian explorer has sat through 5,000 Martian days on the Red Planet, a feat it was never supposed to be able to achieve.

Opportunity was launched on the Delta II rocket on July 7, 2003, alongside another rover called Spirit. The two then landed on Mars in January 2004, both setting down on opposite sides of the planet. For Opportunity, Sol 1 was January 25, 2004. That’s the term for a solar day on Mars, which is about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day.

At the time, the rover was never expected to last beyond 90 sols.

The thing is, NASA didn’t believe Opportunity or Spirit would last through their first winter on Mars. It’s a season on the Red Planet that lasts twice as long as on Earth and, having landed in the Southern Hemisphere, would have made it harder for the rovers’ solar panels to draw power from the Sun appearing in the northern sky. Eventually however, NASA figured out a way to tilt the rovers and angle their panels to the Sun, letting them draw just enough power to survive the winter and continue their missions.

Spirit was eventually lost to a sand trap in 2009, but Opportunity is still going strong in its eighth Martian winter, alongside the newer Curiosity rover.

In fact, Opportunity has managed to gradually travel about 45 km from its landing site, making massive discoveries for humankind in the process.

The rover has returned about 225,000 images, all of which have been made publicly available online.?

Congratulations Opportunity!