Mars Rover Stuck in a Dune

Bamfarooni writes "The NASA Mars rover Opportunity has gotten stuck in a dune, buried up to the hubs of the wheels. While they haven't given up yet, it doesn't look good for the little guy who's now 359 days into the extended mission." From the article: "The Mars machinery had been cruising southward across the open parking lot-like landscape of Meridiani Planum, full of larger and larger ripples of soil. Opportunity has been en route to its next stopover, Erebus crater, nestled inside an even larger crater known as Terra Nova."

Comments

Re:Job well done

[poserFish]

Now the shuttle engineers.... thats a whole different story!

Re:Baja Claws

[robertjw]

Oh, tell me you did NOT reply to my post with a link to a Landrover site. You are just wrong on SO many levels.

• First, the Baja Claw is generally a accepted to be a good sand tire. If I was mudding and needed traction I'd use a Super Swamper.
• Second, the amount of traction that's good for a sand tire depends on several factors. What I've found over the years is that a vehicle with low horsepower generally does better with a smoother tire will spin, keeping wheel speed up and not digging in to the sand. If you have enough power, a tire with more traction will actually work better, as long as the air pressure is low. If you look at the trucks that race in SCORE you will see that most of those have aggressive tires with transverse ribs, unlike the Landrover article you cited.
• Third, Landrover is the most overrated, underpowered, ridiculous excuse for a 4x4 on the PLANET. If you doubt I know what I'm talking about, show me a Landrover that can do this.
• Finally, the word is TIRES, spell it with me T-I-R-E-S