My kitty, Keelor, is still going strong at 17 (knock on wood). He came from a litter of four, one of whom died when he was only a few months old. His sister was euthanized just last year at 16, but his other brother died at a relatively young age (around 10, if I remember correctly) from necrotizing pancreatitis.
X-band radio waves used by the rover to communicate. The rover communicates with the orbiters and the DSN through radio waves. They communicate with each other through X-band, which are radio waves at a much higher frequency than radio waves used for FM stations. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Last year, NASA announced that it's developing robots that can 3D-print infrastructure on Mars, so this could well be a possibility. Until then, Curiosity and its rover buddy Opportunity will just have to revel in the ambigious state of their cleanliness, and stay the hell away from the water.