Nasa has provided extended financing for Spirit and Opportunity to continue experimenting Mars until the end of 2009. This is now fifth time the financing is extended. Alan Stern from Nasa says that they are extremely happy to continue the project. Spirit and Opportunity provide fabulous data even though they have now served longer than it was planned. John Callas from Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that Spirit and Opportunity have some defencies after serving three years, but they are still working fine.

According to the findings of Opportunity, Mars has been wet enough to sustain some sort of life. Opportunity has driven 11,57 kilometers and has sent more than 94 000 images, while Spirit has driven 7,26 kilometers and sent more than 102 000 images.

Read more about this in Nasa’s website.