Just after NASA made the sad announcement that the Mars Phoenix Lander had run out of power and ceased communicating, word comes of power problems with the Mars rover Spirit, which has been blithely rolling over the Martian terrain for almost five years. NASA revealed yesterday that dust storms last week left Spirit's solar panels coated with dust and caused power levels to drop to an all-time low, and that the rover then shut down operations and went dormant. Spirit's scientists are now hoping for a message signaling that the rover survived the storm and has recovered power.
Spirit may emerge unscathed. "We are cautiously optimistic that we can get through this dust storm without a catastrophe," says rover project scientist Bruce Banerdt.... That's because spring is dawning in the southern hemisphere, where Spirit is located, and the extra sunlight means the rover needs less energy to run its heaters. ...
