When NASA submitted it’s 2016 budget proposal last week, there were many exciting projects mentioned. These included the next generation Mars rover mission and a probe targeted at Jupiter’s moon Europa. However, there were also a few glaring omissions. The Lunar Reconnoissance Orbiter was not in the budget and neither was the decade old Opportunity Rover.

Opportunity has already lived far longer than anyone expected it to. The golf cart-sized rover was launched, along with its sister rover Spirit in June 2003 to explore the history of water on Mars. The initial mission was to last just 90 Martian days. Since then the mission has survived on extensions, 5 of them to date.

The mission, overall, has been remarkably successful, gathering enormous amounts of data and sending stunning photos of the Martian surface back to Earth. In 2009, the Spirit rover became stuck in soft soil and functioned as a “stationary science platform”. Sprit was last hear from on March 22, 2010 and was finally declared lost in May, 2011.

Opportunity however has carried on but, after 10 years and more than 26 miles of travel on the Martian surface, the rover is beginning to show its age.

In November, 2014 Opportunity began to have issues with its robotic arm. Shortly after that, the rover began to have memory problems. Both of these problems have been corrected for the time being but they may be signs that, after 10 years, a machine built to last 90 days is wearing down.

While the 2016 budget may yet change as it passes through the various levels of government, it contained no funding for the aging rover.  There has been no official word from NASA about future plans for the mission, which costs about $14 million annually to operate.

“The idea of allowing it to die a lonely death out there in space is appalling, particularly when it continues to do good science. Sometimes NASA will do things like this because they know the programs enjoy strong congressional support and they expect Congress to find the money to support the funding. But that’s not a very prudent way to budget or to plan,” Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) told the Los Angeles Times.

Shiff’s home district includes Pasadena, California home of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA, of course, still has the Curiosity rover which landed on Mars in 2012. The car-sized Curiosity was sent to examine the climate and geology of Mars and to look for conditions, past or present, favorable to microbial life. Because of its larger size and more expansive mission, Curiosity is more durable and his a broader range of scientific instruments available to it.

There is also an increasing focus on the Mars 2020 project. The next generation rover is expected to be the most durable and maneuverable and advanced to date. Most recently there has been discussion of virtual reality capabilities, allowing remote operators to see what the rover sees and helicopter drones to provide overhead views of the rover’s immediate terrain.

If NASA has gotten all the good it can out of the aging Opportunity Rover, there is also a possibility that they can find a new “home” for it. Last year a privately funded team tried to take over the International Sun/Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3) and, while the effort was ultimately unsuccessful, it does set something like a precedent. NASA could find a public or academic team with new goals for Opportunity, which finished its primary mission a decade ago.