Opportunity

It travelled more than 500 million kilometres simply as passenger, sleeping dreamless, vacuum-packed. The five-and-a-half-month voyage was devoid of all interest until the very end, when the spacecraft lost 20 000kph of its velocity in just over six minutes as it plunged through and alien sky to the desert below. Parachutes spread and airbags deployed. The package bounced, rolled and came to rest.
Opportunity still had 45km to go.

– First paragraph of Economist Obituary for Opportunity, rover on Mars –