The Mars rover Spirit is currently stuck in a sand pit and has been for nearly a year. NASA engineers are working hard to figure a way to get the robotic machine out of its quagmire because it depends on solar light for power, and where it is sitting, it is getting less and less sunlight and will effectively be dead in February. Before you curse NASA, the machine was only supposed to work for three months and has been working for six years.
We’ve been stuck in a 4×4 in the woods badly enough that it took half the day to get our junk out. We cannot begin to imagine how these guys go about trying to free the rover that is sitting hundreds of thousands of miles away. We get a headache even thinking about the specifics of making the whole operation work. The fact that it even got there in the first place is a mind-blower.
The problem is twofold. The first issue is the soft sand that the rover is sitting in. There is virtually no traction available. The second issue is the fact that a couple of the wheels have stopped working. If it still had six-wheel-drive, the machine would be zipping all over the planet again. It is now reduced to a 4×4. The good news is that they’ve been able to move it a couple inches recently and the brainiacs at NASA have a couple of plans they are putting into place to get the machine free again.
The story is really interesting and once you get into reading it, you’ll find yourself pulling for the machine and the engineers to free it.
Source — NYTimes.com — Plotting a Future for the Spirit, a Hobbled Mars Rover
