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Mars Rover Opportunity Still Stuck In a Dune

Posted by Zonk on from the lonely-little-guy dept.

Maddog Batty writes "The mars rover Opportunity, which has been stuck in a sand dune since the end of April, is still going nowhere after wheel spinning attempts were made to free the probe. It did manage to move a very short distance as can be seen in the difference between these two images. Before this attempt the NASA JPL team were playing in their own sandpit trying to replicate the conditions on Mars. (older coverage)"

1 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. I've skimmed TFA's, but... by tunabomber · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I still have this question: if they do manage to get it free, how long until it just gets stuck again?

    From the pictures it looks like Opportunity is entering a Martian dune sea, which will offer many more opportunities (npi) to get stuck once more. Do they have a plan to identify/avoid soft spots like this one in the future?

    --

    pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory71 ...