Mars Rovers Outlive Life Expectancy, Back in Action After Storms

Mars rovers, which were developed to last just few months, have far outlived their life expentancy. Today, NASA reports that Spirit, which launched in June 2003, is on Martian day (sol) 1282, outliving Viking 2 by a day so far. Also today scientists are operating Spirit's arm for the first time in three weeks during a reprieve from dust storms, according to a NASA press release:

It will position the arm's microscopic imager to take a series of photographs of two soil targets and one rock target. Opportunity's planned science observations are for studies of the atmosphere.

Spirit's sister rover, Opportunity, is just a few weeks younger than Spirit, and is also back in action recently.

The increased output from the solar panels, though slight, has allowed
Opportunity to fully charge its batteries and Spirit to bring its batteries to nearly full charge. Also, the temperature of the core electronics module on Opportunity, which was of concern when it fell to minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 37 Celsius) last week, has increased to minus 28.1 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 33.4 degrees Celsius).

They're not in the clear yet though, dust storms are expected to continue to ravage the surface of the planet, NASA scientists say. They're also not breaking the all-time record yet, according to Slashdot. Viking 1 lased 2245 sols -- Spirit and Opportunity will get there in about 2.7 Earth years.

Martian Skies Brighten Slightly [NASA]