Mars Rover Update

With winter still freezing the southern hemisphere of Mars, June might have been an uneventful month for your average working robot, but not the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs). In fact, from the sounds of silence to a major discovery to an injury scare, the rovers' latest trials, tribulations and achievements, have turned the last four weeks into something of an emotional roller-coaster for some members of the MER team.

At Gusev Crater, Spirit continued to hibernate. "We haven't heard anything yet, but we continue to listen everyday," reported John Callas, MER project manager, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where the rovers were designed, built, and are managed. There is no way to check Spirit's vitals until she phones home, but the team feels confidant that the rover is hunkered down and re-charging her two main power batteries as programmed to do. In the meantime, operations team members are making sure they're ready for the beeps of a communiqué they expect sooner or later from Spirit.…

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