After spending over a year trying to contact the rover, Spirit's mission has officially ended after 6 years 2 months 19 days, which is over 25 times the original planned mission duration. Her sister, Opportunity, is still going on the other side of Mars. There will be a formal farewell ceremony after Memorial Day, which will be shown on NASA TV.
Spirit got stuck in a patch of soft sand; due to having to drag a bum wheel and the nearest tow being on the other side of the planet, she became a stationary research platform. Because she was unable to position herself for optimal charging, and the constant accumulation of dust, communications were lost in March 2010, and on 24 May 2011 NASA declared Spirit's mission completed.
The amount of knowledge sent back by the MER mission is huge, and since they were only supposed to last 90 days I think we got our money's worth on this project... I wish we could hit home-runs like that all the time!
Thanks for the OT, Spirit - enjoy the rest! Maybe we can bring you some spares in the not-so-distant future...
