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Wheel Trouble may doom stuck Rover on Mars?
By Tariq Malik
Managing Editor
posted: 11 December 2009
11:53
After months stuck fast in deep Martian sand, NASA's embattled rover Spirit is facing a debilitating wheel problem that has slowed its escape efforts and could paralyze the long-lived robot.
Spirit has been trapped wheel-deep in sand for nearly eight months and engineers on Earth have been spinning the Mars rover's wheels in recent weeks to try and force it free. But the rover's right-rear wheel has been stalling, and now may be broken for good. "These wheel stalls have been such a complication, that we really haven't gotten started," said rover project manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a recent interview on Spirit's escape attempts. Recent tests "continue to indicate a troubled wheel, which may leave the rover with only four operable wheels," mission managers said Thursday in a status update. READ MORE: Space.com Photo Credit: Space .com
