Meanwhile IIRC, Voyager hums merrily along and still sends occasional data.
Haven’t the Mars Rovers already out lived their
design lifespan??
Yup, and all that with a main antenna that probably has more holes than a colander at this point.
And it’s not “occasional data”. It still reports back regularly, and is continuing to provide data about conditions at and beyond the boundary of the solar system. From Wikipedia: Voyager 1 is expected to continue its mission until 2025, when its generators will no longer supply enough power to operate any of its instruments.
Those vacuum tubes were built to last.