Spirit Gears Up for Escape
From Nature.com
After being stuck in soft soil on Mars for six months, Spirit, one of two NASA rovers on the red planet, is about to attempt an escape.
"It's likely that this process will take months and we don't even know if we'll be successful," says John Callas, project manager for Spirit and its twin rover Opportunity at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Spirit landed on Mars in January 2004 for what was originally planned as only a three-month mission.
The attempted drive out of the soft, floury soil that Spirit drove into accidentally in May this year comes after a seven-member review panel took a close look at the recovery effort on 28 October. The panel recommended that the rover project team should try to extract Spirit as soon as possible. Time is of the essence - as winter approaches, power from Spirit's solar panels wanes. "The coming winter could pose a risk to the rover," says Callas.
Back in May, as Spirit drove across a sloping area near the planet's equator called Home Plate, the solid crust gave way to reveal soft ground beneath, and Spirit's five (out of six) functional wheels couldn't get enough grip to drive out. Instead, the rover sank deeper like a car spinning its wheels in deep snow. The sixth wheel hasn't worked since March 2006.
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