Contrary to its name, the Sprint Mars rover remains decidedly stuck, and after nine months of waiting incommunicado NASA is fighting to restart communication with the antisocial android before winter turns the Red Planet blue. If scientists cannot reestablish communication before the end of Martian springmid-Marchthe rover may not survive winter.
Spring is the time to revive the rover. "The amount of solar energy available for Spirit is still increasing every day for the next few months," explains John Callas, Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager. "As long as that's the case, we will do all we can to increase the chances of hearing from the rover again."
The extraterrestrial's troubles began when its wheels cracked through the planet's crusty surface and sunk in the sand below. Despite numerous efforts to dislodge the vehicle, scientists declared it stuck last January. Since last spring, the rover has rested in low-power hibernation to conserve energy.
Sprint needs enough solar energy to thaw itself through winter. While NASA engineers have tried to position the robot's solar array towards the sun, if debris blows onto the panels, it won't absorb enough energy to wake.
Sprint and its sibling Opportunity have roamed the surface of the Red Planet for the past five years, considerably exceeding their expected mission of three months. Despite Sprint's recent troubles, Opportunity has stayed true to its name: the rover to continues exploring and sending back data. Last winter NASA even upgraded its firmware, enabling the robot to stop and analyze rocks as it roves the Martian surface. Now if only we could get software updates for five-year old hardware back home.