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Mars explorers

Mars explorers
Mars explorers The MER scientists and engineers gathered for a team portrait during the rovers’ prime mission on Mars in 2004 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, original home to all NASA’s spacecraft at the Red Planet. The team has evolved. As people moved on, second and third generations of engineers and scientists joined the adventure. But once a MERtian, always a MERtian. “All of you made this happen, this phenomenal legacy of exploration and scientific discovery,” Callas wrote in a touching email to the team just before the end of mission was declared. “You created these machines. You were the custodians of this enterprise that for the first time exceeded a marathon's distance on another world. You enabled this rover to survive winter after harsh winter. It was you who overcame hardware failures and capability loss to keep this machine enduring and productive. But we could not make them last forever. Though these rovers are magnificent machines, they, like us, are mortal.” NASA/JPL-Caltech