Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Works as Team Tests Exit Moves, Opportunity Roves to Block Island By A.J.S. Rayl July 31, 2009 Click to enlarge > Mars Exploration Rovers Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech The Mars Exploration Rovers maintained a busy schedule in July: Spirit worked day and night doing whatever it could to make use of its abundant energy; Opportunity effectively treated its “hot” right front wheel and got back to making some consecutive long drives toward the still distant Endeavour Crater. But most of the spotlight action on the mission this month took place at the indoor Mars yard at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). That’s where Spirit’s engineers and scientists sunk a ground test rover up to its ‘hubcaps’ in a sandbox filled with a yellow-tan powdery substitute for Martian dirt and began testing maneuvers to evaluate the best exit strategy for their mobility impaired robot up on Mars, a process the team anticipated last month would take several weeks. A steady stream of tour groups – from students to tourists – peered in on the action from the roverwalk overlooking the In-Situ Instrument Laboratory (ISIL) as the Mars yard is officially called, while tens of thousands hit the Free Spirit website to follow along as the MER crew members put the ground rover through the paces. In some tests, the rover spun its wheels forward, in others it moved them backward, and sometimes it moved sideways or ‘crabbed,’ and in every case, every centimeter of movement was measured.

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