NASA’s Opportunity rover has been crippled and blinded by problems with two of its most important instruments. The agency has suspended work involving the rover’s rock grinding tool and its infrared spectrometer while engineers try to work out a fix.
The problems are the latest in a long line of failures that have begun to plague both rovers as they age.
Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, were designed to last just 90 days. But they have been driving around the Red Planet for nearly 4 years, having landed in January 2004.