Hasta La Gadget!

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has launched Free Spirit, a Web site dedicated to keeping track of the agency’s efforts to free the stuck rover on the surface of Mars, Space.com reports. NASA currently has an entire team of engineers working to simulate the rover’s predicament using a test rover and several tons of simulated Mars dirt.

“People really like the whole ‘free Spirit,’ idea and we thought we should make it really easy for people to find updates,” said Veronica McGregor, a NASA spokesperson at JPL, in the article. “In a way, we’re trying to make it a campaign that everyone can get involved in.”

The team is still working on the problem of a big rock situated beneath the rover’s stomach, though it appears that it isn’t touching quite enough to become a huge problem. Still, the situation remains precarious. “This is a
very tough situation and we’re not sure we can get Spirit out,” McGregor said in the report. There’s lots more, including a video showing the spinning wheel in the dirt, so head on over to the Free Spirit Web site at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/freespirit/. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)