JPL makes last effort to save Mars Rover

NASA officials and JPL scientists will make a final attempt Monday night to extricate the Mars rover Spirit, which got caught near the edge of what appears to be an ancient impact site six months ago.

The vehicle has been “mobility impaired” since late April, when it’s hard metal wheels broke through a deceptively solid top layer of crust in an area of the planet named Troy and began to sink into a powdery fine mixture of sandy material and rock clusters, according to Doug McCuiston, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.

Operation of the vehicle has hit snags in the past, including a recent bout of “amnesia,” in which daily data was not recorded until Spirit’s flash memory was successfully reformatted on Wednesday. If this new fix fails, McCuiston said, its travels may be over.

“Unfortunately, Spirit may have met its match in this one,” he added.

Monday’s command will order the backwards-facing vehicle to move straight in a forward direction, doubling back on previously made tracks in the crust. Progress will be slow, said John Callan, project manager of both Mars Exploration Rovers at JPL, as the vehicle is commanded to move mere centimeters at a time. After each move, scientists will spend a day analyzing what the next steps will be.

“We haven’t found a clear solution to how to get Spirit out of its predicament, but if there is a way to get the rover out, we’ll find it.”

Despite its relative immobility, the rest of Spirit has remained functional and continues to collect scientifically significant data from the immediately surrounding area, explained Ray Arvidson, deputy principal investigator for both Spirit and its companion rover, Opportunity, currently at work in another part of the planet.

The location of the stall turned out to be fortuitous after scientists discovered from samples that Spirit was in between two geologically distinct land masses — one that contained sulfate-rich coarse sand and one that did not.

A topographical stereo scan of the area revealed the high sulfate levels were the result of a very old impact site that was covered by debris, said Arvison from his office at Washington University in St. Louis.

“We’re sitting just astride a circular feature that we think is an old, old impact crater,” Arvidson added. “We couldn’t have told this before we drove into it.”