tl;dr: After 13 years on Mars, Curiosity remains operational thanks to clever software workarounds—including one where engineers jettisoned old flight software copies to repurpose 64MB of NOR memory as a file system after both onboard computers suffered memory failures. The biggest constraints are wheel wear (mitigated by driving backwards), actuator cycles, and declining RTG power output, which JPL addresses by sleeping the power-hungry RAD 750 processor and parallelizing tasks. The rover is expected to keep doing science through 2035, with lessons learned already informing Perseverance's autonomous driving capabilities.