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(PhysOrg.com) -- Spirit's right-front wheel, which had stopped operating in March 2006, revolved with apparently normal motion during the first three of four driving segments on Sol 2117 (Wednesday, Dec. 16) but stopped early in the fourth segment of the drive. http://www.physorg.com/news180369209.html Space & Earth Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:33:51 EST news180369209 (PhysOrg.com) -- Results of diagnostic tests on Spirit's right-rear wheel on Sol 2109 (Dec. 8, 2009) continue to indicate a troubled wheel, which may leave the rover with only four operable wheels. http://www.physorg.com/news179689932.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:52:47 EST news179689932 (PhysOrg.com) -- A series of diagnostic tests on Spirit's right-rear wheel on sols 2104 and 2105 (Dec. 3 and 4) investigated stalls that occurred on Sol 2099 (Nov. 28) and earlier. The rover team cannot draw any conclusions at this point, but the results are not encouraging, and further tests are planned. http://www.physorg.com/news179520386.html Space & Earth Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:47:28 EST news179520386 (PhysOrg.com) -- Spirit's right-rear wheel stalled again on Sol 2099 (Nov. 28, 2009) during the first step of a two-step extrication maneuver. http://www.physorg.com/news178990566.html Space & Earth Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:36:57 EST news178990566 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter put itself into a safe standby mode on Saturday, Nov. 28, and the team operating the spacecraft has begun implementing careful steps designed to resume Odyssey's science and relay operations within about a week. http://www.physorg.com/news178907664.html Space & Earth Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:34:56 EST news178907664 (PhysOrg.com) -- Until Oct. 24, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover had gone more than six months without an episode of amnesia-like symptoms like those that appeared on four occasions earlier this year. http://www.physorg.com/news176195599.html Space & Earth Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:14:12 EST news176195599 (PhysOrg.com) -- If you found your grandmother's diary, tattered and dust covered, up in the attic, would you read it? Of course you would. Granny was a pistol! Brush off the dust, open up the little book, and foray into her lively and interesting past. http://www.physorg.com/news176134247.html Space & Earth Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:50:02 EST news176134247 (PhysOrg.com) -- Tests on Earth simulating Spirit's predicament on Mars have reinforced understanding that getting Spirit to rove again will be very difficult. http://www.physorg.com/news172220956.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:20:01 EST news172220956 (PhysOrg.com) -- Mars rover team members are planning a long-duration experiment with the test rover at JPL beginning next week. This test will check whether favorable motion seen in earlier tests can be sustained to gain as much distance in the sandbox as Spirit would need to complete on Mars to escape its predicament. http://www.physorg.com/news169480401.html Space & Earth Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:20:01 EST news169480401 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity is investigating a metallic meteorite the size of a large watermelon that is providing researchers more details about the Red Planet's environmental history. http://www.physorg.com/news169145414.html Space & Earth Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:50:41 EST news169145414 Mars rover engineers at JPL are winding down testing of different escape maneuvers using a test rover in a sand box filled with soil to mimic the Martian surface. It is possible that in early August the first extraction attempts with Spirit rover, which is dug-in on Mars, might take place. http://www.physorg.com/news168270821.html Space & Earth Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:30:02 EST news168270821 (PhysOrg.com) -- Mars rover team members have begun a new phase of testing at JPL -- using longer-duration experiments -- in their preparations for driving Spirit again on Mars. http://www.physorg.com/news167929150.html Space & Earth Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:59:34 EST news167929150 As the Mars rover team uses testing at JPL to evaluate possible ways to drive Spirit out of loose soil on Mars, the team is finishing tests of individual "building block" maneuvers and is about to begin stringing some of those together. http://www.physorg.com/news167496512.html Space & Earth Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:10:02 EST news167496512 The Mars rover team is using a test rover at JPL to assess various extraction techniques that might get Spirit out of the loose soil of "Troy" on Mars. http://www.physorg.com/news167060388.html Space & Earth Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:45:37 EST news167060388 Using a test rover in a sandbox at JPL with special soil simulating Spirit's predicament on Mars, engineers are assessing possible maneuvers for getting Spirit out and onto firmer ground. http://www.physorg.com/news166203838.html Space & Earth Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:44:33 EST news166203838 In one of the most remarkable engineering feats of our time, the aging Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still taking orders and sending home pictures more than five years after they were supposed to turn into slabs of space junk. http://www.physorg.com/news165402360.html Space & Earth Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:06:33 EST news165402360 Scientists have developed a new cleaning protocol for space hardware, such as the scoops of Mars rovers, which could be used on future "Search for Life" missions on other planets. http://www.physorg.com/news163665824.html Space & Earth Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:44:01 EST news163665824 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, scheduled for launch in 2011, has a new name, thanks to a sixth-grade student from Kansas. Twelve-year-old Clara Ma from the Sunflower Elementary school in Lenexa submitted the winning entry, "Curiosity." As her prize, Ma wins a trip to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where she will be invited to sign her name directly onto the rover as it is being assembled. http://www.physorg.com/news162665786.html Space & Earth Wed, 27 May 2009 17:57:21 EST news162665786 (PhysOrg.com) -- One of NASA's two Mars rovers has recorded a compelling saga of environmental changes that occurred over billions of years at a Martian crater. http://www.physorg.com/news162139346.html Space & Earth Thu, 21 May 2009 15:43:39 EST news162139346 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA released an interactive, 3-D photographic collection of internal and external views of the International Space Station and a model of the next Mars rover on Thursday, May 7. http://www.physorg.com/news160930227.html Space & Earth Thu, 07 May 2009 15:51:15 EST news160930227 (PhysOrg.com) -- On a plain that stretches for miles in every direction, the panoramic camera on NASA's Mars rover Opportunity has caught a first glimpse on the horizon of the uplifted rim of the big crater that has been Opportunity's long-term destination for six months. http://www.physorg.com/news156621141.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:54:50 EST news156621141 (PhysOrg.com) -- After five groundbreaking years exploring the Red Planet, the communications engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory pretty much know what they are getting when another downlink from Spirit or Opportunity arrives. They know that with a typical transmission comes about 10 megabits of engineering data, another 4 megabits of science data, and around 26 megabits of images. They also realize that after the information is amassed and analyzed by the rovers' science teams that the most unique, scientifically exciting of that compiled data will be released via peer-reviewed papers, articles, science briefings and press releases. http://www.physorg.com/news151259758.html Space & Earth Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:35:58 EST news151259758