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Spirit Rover Disabled on Mars

Posted by michael on from the tow-truck-rates-astronomical dept.

Nick Driver writes " Space.com is reporting that the Spirit Rover hasn't moved since October 1st and is suffering from two wheels that can no longer steer and thus are being held in a fixed direction by their locked steering motors. Hopefully one of the workarounds being considered will allow the rover to be moved again and still retain sufficient steering control over the remaining wheels to continue the mission."

3 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. NASA statement by blamanj · · Score: 4, Informative

    here.

  2. Calm down - Spirit driving again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    The anomoly seen on Sol 265 was not seen in diagnostics run on Sol 270. Spirit will drive again during activities on Sol 271 (todayish)

  3. Re:I'm Surprised by tzanger · · Score: 2, Informative

    Anyway, I always wondered why NASA didn't foresee these types of issues and BUILD IN workarounds, like little wipers for the solar panels!?

    This has been discussed again and again and again - it was considered, and discounted. These units are already well over their designed lifetime. Armchair quarterbacks such as yourself could only hope to have such a successful mission.