One Long Trip: NASA’s Spirit Rover Hits 1,000th Martian Day

NASA’s Spirit rover hit the 1,000-Martian day of its mission on the red planet Thursday, but the mission continues for the hardy robot.

To celebrate the Martian milestone, rover mission managers released the McMurdo panorama [image], a mosaic of some 1,449 individual images taken by Spirit’s panoramic camera.

“It has been a surprise and delight to see the vehicle survive as long as it has,” Jake Mapijevic, engineering team chief for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission. “We had anticipated a much shorter mission.”
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