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Spirit Stuck In Soft Soil On Mars

Posted by timothy on from the it's-covered-in-jam dept.

cheros writes "NASA reports that the Spirit Mars lander is presently stuck in soft soil. The lander's wheels are halfway sunk into the soil and they are planning simulation tests to see if they can get it out again. I hope they can get it out of there because it's picking up enough new energy to operate; however, it only has 5 wheels left to get around on — one of the wheels hasn't been working for years. Fingers crossed."

1 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Inflatable Tires? by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if they could put inflatable tires on rovers and then manually adjust the pressure for each one to accomodate different soil types, a la WWII DUKW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUKW It might help the rover to better adapt to different kinds of soils.

    Of course, it would have to be designed for the different pressures of the martian atmosphere.