Obituary: The Mars Rover was declared lost on February 12th
Humankind’s longest-lived emissary to Mars outlasted expectations by a factor of ten
IT TRAVELLED more than 500m kilometres simply as a passenger, sleeping dreamless, vacuum-packed. The five-and-a-half-month voyage was devoid of all interest until the very end, when the spacecraft lost 20,000kph of its velocity in just over six minutes as it plunged through an alien sky to the desert below. Parachutes spread and airbags deployed. The package bounced, rolled and came to rest.
This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “Remembering a robot”
Obituary February 23rd 2019
From the February 23rd 2019 edition
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