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NASA has celebrated Mars rover Spirit's bountiful, six-year stint on the red planet, much longer than the three months it was forecast to last. But it all may soon come to an end, stuck as it is in Martian sand.
The tireless, 180-kilogram, six-wheel robot broke through a crusty surface layer to strike sand in April at one edge of the Troy crater, west of the Home Plate plateau, in the Martian southern hemisphere.
All attempts to extricate it have failed so far. On the last attempt, in November, not only did the robot not budge from its place, but its right rear wheel broke down. Its right front wheel stopped working in 2006 probably due to a worn out electric motor.
Dead in its tracks, Spirit cannot shake off the Martian dust that is slowly accumulating on its solar panels, preventing its batteries from recharging.
Unless the wind blows the dust away or, in a spurt of energy, Spirit can shift its inclination to better point the panels toward the sun, "the amount of sunshine available will continue to decline until (the Martian solstice) May 2010," NASA said on its website.
That means "Spirit may not have enough power to remain in operation" during the Martian winter, the space agency added.
Despite its predicament, Spirit has been able to carry on its scientific work and has even made an unexpected discovery.
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