Mars rover to regain contact. Mars 2, Mars 3 were physically tethered probes; "Sojourner" was dependent on the Mars Pathfinder base station for communication with Earth; MER-A & B and "Curiosity" were on their own. Of these "Curiosity" is still active, and "Spirit", "Opportunity" and "Sojourner" completed their missions before losing contact. Seven rovers have been dispatched to Mars: "Examples Landed instrumentation" (Rovers) Mars rovers in development include: One experimental design, not proposed for any actual mission, is: NASA distinguishes between "mission" objectives and "science" objectives. Mission objectives are related to progress in space technology and development processes. Science objectives are met
Opportunity mission timeline may clear the dust from its solar panels, as it has happened before. Some of the craters MER-B has investigated Some excitement from finding meteorites, new types of rock or signatures detected from orbit, and speculations on ancient alien fossils which as of yet lean towards geological processes. "Examples" Some other famous targets are the "blueberries" (2004) and "newberries", aka Kirkwood spheres (2012) See also List of rocks on Mars#Opportunity and List of surface features of Mars imaged by "Opportunity" Opportunity mission timeline Opportunity, MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B), is a robotic rover active on the planet Mars since