Blog #4

My Topic

                         The amount of time that Spirit and Opportunity was expected to live was about 90 days, however, those two exceeded the time frame by quite a lot. Spirit lasted multiple years before it lost one of its wheels, drove along Mars for a little while longer and got stuck again in an area now know as Troy.  During its escape of Troy was the highlight of its life, in which it found soil, rich with sulfates which is a component of Steam.  According to NASA, this means hot or boiling water could have once existed on Mars. Unfortunately, Spirit stopped sending signals back to Earth in 2010, but Opportunity was still roaming the martian soil. During the July of 2010, it sent back its 100,000th signal back to Earth. 

                         The next mission after Curiosity is MAVEN, Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission.  The reason for MAVEN is to use the different models of the Sun, and to estimate how much water Mars has lost due to solar winds filled with radiation that come from the sun. MAVEN is scheduled to launch later this year. "The instruments for it are already built." (Zurek par 44) However, at this moment, NASA is currently focused on a 2,000 pound project called, "Curiosity."