Mars Rover Down? Spirit Stays Silent

 

Despite NASA's best efforts to wake her, Mars Exploration Rover Spirit remains silent on the Red Planet's surface. It's been a whole year since we last heard from the little wheeled robot and hope has all but faded for her revival.

For the next month, NASA will continue to listen out for Spirit, but after that time search operations will be scaled back to focus on sister rover Opportunity. Opportunity continues her marathon drive to Endeavour Crater, over seven years since she landed on Mars.

BIG PIC GALLERY: Saving Spirit

Spirit became stuck in a sand trap in Gusev crater in 2009 and an epic mission began to try to dislodge the rover's buried wheels from the trap, aptly named "Troy." Despite the combined efforts of rover drivers, scientists and engineers, the wheels kept spinning in the loose Martian soil.

For a time, Spirit was able to do some valuable science despite her stationary predicament. Indeed, Mars rover driver Scott Maxwell said, "This has been very much like your car breaking down right next to Disney Land," in a 2009 "Free Spirit Update", when commenting on the amazing science that could still be carried out where Spirit stood. However, this didn't last for long as she couldn't adjust her position to face the sun as the Martian winter crept in.

As the Martian nights drew shorter, and the sunlight barely reached Spirit's solar panels, by March 2010 her batteries drained and she dropped into a self-preservation hibernation state. Communications with Earth and other activities were suspended and any remaining energy was utilized in keeping the batteries warm and mission clock ticking.

NASA has repeatedly tried to revive the rover, but after months of flyovers by Mars satellites, there's been no signal from Spirit. It's looking as if she has succumbed to a lack of energy and freezing temperatures.

In light of this bad news, today Scott Maxwell remarked:

"Spirit was so close to us, just a year ago. Snap your fingers, and she's a hundred million miles distant and we can't even prove she's alive."

If this is indeed the end of the road for Spirit, it is a sad time for Mars exploration. But it's only sad because that little rover has become synonymous with the Martian landscape, epitomizing the spirit of planetary exploration.

Most recent Spirit update:

No communication has been received from Spirit since Sol 2210 (March 22, 2010), over a year ago.

Deep Space Network X-band listening and recovery commanding continue. The project has been systematically conducting commanding over a range of frequencies and over a range of local solar times on Mars. This covers the possibility that the rover's receiver has degraded and/or the clock has drifted significantly since March of 2010.

The project is continuing the commanding of extra-long ultra-high frequency (UHF) relay passes to account for possible rover clock drift or clock error and to make the rover responsive to UHF relay (if it is has experienced a mission-clock fault). The project is also commanding the backup solid-state power amplifier, in case the primary X-band transmitter has failed. Peak solar energy production for Spirit at the Gusev site is estimated to have already occurred back around March 10, 2011.

Total odometry is unchanged at 7,730.50 meters (4.80 miles).

Image: This synthetic image of the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover on top of a rock called "Jibsheet" was produced using "Virtual Presence in Space" technology. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell