Opportunity's twin — it fought for six years before the sand won.
Spirit was the first of NASA's twin 2004 rovers, landing in Gusev Crater three weeks before Opportunity. It found some of the strongest evidence for ancient water on Mars, drove for over six years, and finally became stuck in soft sand — sending its last signal in 2010. You can own the ground where it made its stand.
Own its landing site — from $99.99 →Spirit (MER-A) touched down in Gusev Crater, a basin scientists suspected had once held a lake. The plains turned out to be volcanic, so Spirit made an ambitious drive to the nearby Columbia Hills — and there it found what it came for.
In 2009 Spirit's wheels broke through a crust into soft sand and it became permanently stuck. Even trapped, it kept doing science as a fixed station. As the Martian winter deepened and its solar panels couldn't catch enough sun, its last communication came on March 22, 2010.
A dragging broken wheel scraped up nearly pure silica — a mineral that, on Earth, forms in hot springs or steam vents. Strong evidence Gusev once had water and heat.
Spirit's destination, the Columbia Hills, was named for the seven astronauts lost aboard Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003.