Built for 90 days. Explored for 15 years. "My battery is low and it's getting dark."
Opportunity landed on January 25, 2004 on a 90-day mission — and kept going for nearly 15 years, becoming the longest-lived rover in history until a planet-wide dust storm finally silenced it in 2018. Its story, and its heartbreaking last transmission, made it the most beloved robot on Mars. You can own the exact ground where it came to rest.
Own its landing site — from $99.99 →Opportunity and its twin Spirit were solar-powered rovers the size of golf carts, sent to opposite sides of Mars in 2004 to search for signs of past water. Almost immediately, Opportunity struck gold: it landed in a small crater whose walls were layered with rock that had clearly formed in water.
It was designed to survive about 90 Martian days. Instead it drove for fifteen years, crossed 45 kilometres, weathered dust storms, survived a stuck wheel and a failing memory, and outlived every expectation NASA had for it.
In June 2018 a global dust storm blotted out the Sun. Opportunity, running only on sunlight, went to sleep. NASA sent commands for months, but on February 13, 2019 the mission was declared complete.
"My battery is low and it's getting dark." — the widely-shared paraphrase of Opportunity's final data, February 2018.
Opportunity found hematite \"blueberries\" and layered rock that only forms in liquid water — hard proof that this part of Mars was once wet.
It became the first vehicle to drive a full marathon (42 km) on another planet.
Nearly 15 years of operation — no lander or rover has matched its longevity on the surface.