End Of The Road For Spirit Mars Rover?

Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

Thursday, March 31st, 2011


Although the Mars rovers have gone way, way beyond the call of duty (the original mission was for 90 days; Opportunity is still active after more than six years), the dream has to end sometime — and evidence is mounting that for Spirit, the first of the two rovers to touch down, may be down for the count. After a year of being trapped in sand, its last big hope was a big solar boost over this last month, but it seems that was insufficient to bring the poor little guy back to life, and NASA is moving on.

It’s not impossible that it could be reinvigorated by a fresh breeze and some sun (like many of us), but things don’t look good.