What do you do when the nearest Jeep with a winch is 384,467 kilometers away?When the Martian rover Spirit and its twin Opportunity landed on Mars in 2004 they were expected to operate for 90 days. Totally unexpected was that five years on both rovers would still be operational and sending back data.
Now, Spirit is in trouble.
Since May it has been stuck in powdery soil on a hillside. NASA's attempts to extricate it are complicated by the fact that Spirit has lost power to one of its six wheels.
Using a test rover in a sandbox at JPL with special soil simulating Spirit's predicament on Mars, engineers are assessing possible maneuvers for getting Spirit out and onto firmer ground.
Speaking of space buggies, here is an excerpt from the DVD Eyes On Mars. Great video of the evolution of wheeled space explorers including the NASA Moon Buggies. I had completely forgotten about the Soviet Lunokhods.
Canadian Dollar Exchange Rate
