( CNN ) -- In more than eight Earth years , NASA 's unexpectedly tough Mars rover Opportunity has been stuck in a sand dune , nursed a bad shoulder and endured five brutal winters on Mars . Its new rover , Curiosity , should be so lucky . Scientists at the space agency 's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California planned for Opportunity to last for 90 days on Mars after its landing in 2004 . Instead , it 's now run for more than 3,000 martian days and traversed 22 miles of the planet 's surface -- scoured by sandstorms and working through temperatures that range from 86 degrees to 112 degrees below zero Fahrenheit ( 30 to -80 C ) . `` The rovers were designed to last in extreme conditions , and we 've taken great care in how to operate them , '' said JPL roboticist Vandi Tompkins , one of Opportunity 's former operators . `` Someday , some essential part will go that stops it . It 's going to happen . But we try our best to push that as far as out as we can . '' Even after all these years , `` You still see a lot of excitement '' at Opportunity 's control center at JPL , '' Tompkins said . NASA spent $ 800 million to launch Opportunity and its sister rover , Spirit . The twin craft lifted off from Cape Canaveral in June 2003 aboard separate Delta II rockets and landed successfully the following January , bouncing onto the surface inside a cocoon of air bags . The roughly 5-foot-long , 380-pound rovers were loaded with a variety of cameras and instruments used to analyze martian rocks and soil , and their findings have helped convince NASA that Mars once had water on its surface . 'Crazy ' Mars landing coming . NASA lost contact with Spirit in 2010 and wrote off the rover in May 2011 , but Opportunity kept on going . Among its findings was a vein of the mineral gypsum -- an indication that water once ran across the surface of the Red Planet . And it beamed back its 100,000th picture , a sweeping panorama of the martian surface , in early July . Not that it 's been unscathed . It 's got a worn `` shoulder '' joint on its robotic arm , making some operations difficult . It was stuck in a sand dune for nearly two months in mid-2005 . But it has had unexpected luck , as well . `` The solar panels were expected to collect a lot of dust , and they did , '' Tompkins said . `` But we 've had winds that have cleaned the solar panels occasionally , and that has given it a new lease on life . '' Tompkins is now working on the much-larger Curiosity . Designers built the 2,000-pound craft with lessons from Spirit and Opportunity in mind , including a longer , more advanced robot arm , a hammer drill that can crack apart rocks and a laser that reduces rock to a hot plasma , allowing an on-board spectrograph to determine its composition . Opportunity 's neighborhood is known as the Meridiani Planum , a sandy desert located a few degrees south and west of the martian equator and its prime meridian . The site is nearly halfway around the planet from Spirit 's location , and from where Curiosity is expected to touch down at 1:31 a.m. Monday ET . It can run more than 100 meters ( 325 feet ) in a day , but it 's not exactly a speed demon : Opportunity tops out at about 2 inches a second . But it 's also capable of climbing up to 30-degree slopes . Building an out-of-this-world menu for Mars . Tompkins says the goal for operators is `` pushing the limits and keeping it safe . '' `` The fact that the rovers have lasted also has to do with how carefully you operate them , '' she said . The average distance between the Earth and Mars is about 225 million miles , but it varies widely during the year as both planets orbit the sun . When they 're the farthest apart -- about 400 million miles -- a radio signal from NASA takes more than half an hour to reach the rovers . That means controllers have to pre-program Opportunity 's daily movements , working from a three-dimensional model of the surrounding terrain , Tompkins said . JPL transmits the plan to the rover , which carries out the program and beams the data back to Earth via two satellites now circling the Red Planet , the Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter . That means the programs have to be completed by the time those satellites are in range , adding one more wrinkle to controllers ' calculations . `` Imagine planning your drive from your home to your office , '' she said . `` Even though you know that route truly well and there 's no traffic , imagine having to pre-think all those options . Then imagine it 's raining . '' Complete coverage on the Mars landing .
The Mars rover Opportunity has survived eight and a half years on Mars . The 5-foot craft was designed to last 90 days . `` We 've taken great care '' in operating it , former driver says .