Spirit & Opportunity

Spirit, a large rover with six tracked wheels, solar panels, and a neck with cameras like a face, is seen on Mars. — A computer rendering of Spirit on Mars. Illustration: JPL/NASA

Spirit and Opportunity are twin rovers that were sent to explore Mars. They landed in 2004, and their mission was seeking evidence about whether Mars might once have been capable of supporting life.

Creator

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Year

2003

Country

United States 🇺🇸

Categories

Aerospace

Features

Opportunity on Mars: Eight years and counting! Video: JPL/NASA

Did you know?

Their mission was scheduled to last 90 days, but Spirit survived for six years and Opportunity is still operational.

Black and white image shows a photo taken by Opportunity in which two of its wheels, and the shadow of its head are seen. — Opportunity casts a shadow on Mars. Photo: JPL-Caltech/NASA

A version of the rover is seen with its wheels partially buried in beige sand, in a lab. — JPL studies how to free Spirit from a Martian sand trap. Photo: JPL-Caltech/NASA

History

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity as part of its Mars Exploration Rover mission. Spirit and Opportunity launched on 10 June and 7 July 2003, respectively. Spirit landed on Gusev Crater (a possible former lake) on 4 January 2004; Opportunity landed at the Meridiani Planum (where mineral deposits suggest a wet past) three weeks later. NASA JPL's Pete Theisinger was the Mars Exploration Rover project manager. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., was principal investigator for the Rovers' identical sets of science instruments. Following on the remarkable success of Spirit and Opportunity, NASA JPL developed even bigger and more advanced rovers: Curiosity and Perseverance.

An older rover with six legs, a boxy beige base, and cameras and electronics. — NASA's pioneering rover Sojourner landed on Mars in 1997. Photo: NASA

Three rovers of varying sizes are seen on Mars. — Three generations of Mars rovers. Photo: JPL-Caltech/NASA

Specs

Overview: Capable of driving autonomously for short distances. Equipped with rocker-bogie suspension system (for rolling over big rocks).
Status: Inactive
Year: 2003
Website: nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/index.html
Width: 230 cm
Height: 150 cm
Length: 160 cm
Weight: 180 kg
Speed: 0.18 km/h (flat, hard terrain)
Sensors: Two panoramic cameras, two navigational cameras, two front hazard detection cameras, and two rear hazcams. Scientific instruments include: mini-thermal emission spectrometer (for detecting the mineral composition of surface features), microscopic imager (for capturing close-up views of rocks), Mossbauer spectrometer (for detecting iron-bearing minerals), Alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (for detecting the elements that make up rocks), and rock abrasion tool (the rover's equivalent of a geologist's rock hammer).
Actuators: 39 Maxon brushed DC motors
Degrees of Freedom (DoF): 39
Materials: Core structure made of composite honeycomb material insulated with aerogel.
Compute: BAE Systems 20-MHz 32-bit RAD6000 CPU (a radiation-hardened version of the PowerPC); on-board memory includes 128 MB RAM, 256 MB flash, and smaller amounts of other non-volatile memory.
Software: Custom software
Power: Solar panels used to recharge two lithium-ion batteries
Cost: $820 million (Total cost, including $645 million spacecraft and science instruments, $100 million launch, and $75 million mission and science operations.)