End of Mission
Although the mission was programmed to last a week to a month, it eventually lasted for almost three months. The final data transmission received from Pathfinder was at 10:23 UTC on September 27, 1997. Although mission managers tried to restore full communications during the following five months, the successful mission was terminated on March 10, 1998.
The eventual failure was concluded to be due to repeated charging and discharging of the on-board battery, leading to its eventual death. The battery was used to heat the probe's electronics to slightly above the expected nighttime temperatures on Mars. With the failure of the battery, colder-than-normal temperatures caused essential hardware to break, leading to loss of communications.
After the landing, Pathfinder was renamed as the Sagan Memorial Station in honor of astronomer and planetologist Carl Sagan. The mission had exceeded its goals in the first month.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted Pathfinder in January 2007 (left).
Read more about this topic: Mars Pathfinder
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“Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story—a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)