Sojourner on Mars
Mission patch
The Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner Truth Rover were launched on December 4, 1996 to Mars. It reached the Red Planet July 4, 1997 and proceeded to exceed all expectations. Anticipated to last only a week to a month, Sojourner Truth lasted almost three months, sending its last communication on September 27. Its on-board battery was designed to last a month, but probably failed due to repeated charging and discharging.
It opened a new era into interplanetary rovers. The Soviets had been sending rovers to the moon but their attempts at Mars failed. NASA's mantra of 'faster, better, cheaper' seemed to have paid off since the cost of the mission was less than $150M, which is one-fifteenth of the cost to send the Viking landers.
The Mars Pathfinder sent back more than 2.3 billion bits of information, made 8.5 million measurements of the atmosphere and 16,500 pictures.
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