NASA’s Mars rover, named Spirit, which touched base on the Red Planet on January 3, 2004 has completed its sixth anniversary. However, the conditions on which it’s passing its days are turning increasingly inhospitable. The rover, which has spent 3.2 mars-years got sand-trapped in the southern hemisphere of Mars in April 2009. The rover was already suffering a failure of its right-side front wheel, which happened in the year 2006. Outlining Spirit’s problems NASA says, “Drives with four or five operating wheels have produced little progress toward escaping the sand trap. The latest attempts resulted in the rover sinking deeper in the soil.”
Concerns are being raised on the ability of the rover to tilt in order to absorb enough sunlight. Failure to tilt its solar arrays to absorb sunlight, it runs the risk of freezing to death due to lack of internal heat to keep its electronics up and running as the winter makes its way on Mars. Showing signs of concerns NASA said, “At the current rate of dust accumulation, solar arrays at zero tilt would provide barely enough energy to run the survival heaters through the Mars winter solstice.”
However, in such an eventuality, the usefulness of the rover is far from over. NASA expects it to be helpful in research related to weather changes and interiors of the planet, from the place where the rover sits currently.