Stuck in a soft patch of sand since April, its whole right side sounds damaged, thanks to the front-right wheel which hasn't worked since 2006, and now the back-right wheel that has seized up trying to get out of the sand.

Solar-powered, the Spirit Rover normally rests up each winter with its solar back angled towards any available sunlight, with enough power soaking in to keep its inside-bits from freezing. But if it can't move out of the sand pit it's stuck in, the Spirit Rover won't be able to soak up those vital rays of light.

NASA, if we all collected enough tinned soup and woolly jumpers to send to Mars, would that help? [New Scientist]

At least, that's the plan. Really they're not expecting much from their efforts. Even though NASA has spent half a year planning how to get the rover out of the loose sand it's stuck in, every step will be dependent on what happens during the previous one. Right now NASA only has six forward rotations of Spirit's wheels planned. They anticipate extreme slippage, and will have to reevaluate the next steps once that first miniscule motion is completed.

If work continues at that pace, it's easy to see why escape efforts are planned to last until 2010. Even if Spirit can't get out of the sand trap that swallowed it, there's still plenty of good the rover can do while stationary. Just know that, whatever happens, we're all pulling for you little buddy. [Network World via Slashdot]

As you'll hear in this clip, the rover is testing a new imaging system that promises to one-up that of the US-based rovers. Europe's system should send back highly detailed 3D maps of the surface that one scientist compared to Google street view.

These maps will be useful in everything from general topographical research to colonial planning to first-person shooters. [BBC News via DVICE]

For this week's Photoshop contest, I asked you guys to show us what the Mars Phoenix really discovered that government didn't want us to know about. Well, apparently Mars is a popular destination for politicians, terrorists, Bigfoot and assorted other bizarre life forms. If most of this stuff did exist on Mars, the Men in Black would break down crying because their lives are meaningless and the government would shut down NASA immediately and return the money to taxpayers. Hit the jump for the top three, the Gallery of Champions and... the truth.

First Place — Ross Jeffcoat
Second Place — Andy Sciamanna
Third Place — John Fischetti

This is a very dangerous time. If we don't hear from it on Thursday, we'll be extremely concerned.

The culprit, again: A sudden dust storm over the Martian equatorial plains. This storm has covered the solar panels during the last days and, as a result, the Mars Spirit only produced 89 watt-hours last weekend. This is half the amount it needs to keep functioning. Scientists at the JPL have turned off heating for many instruments in the hope that the rover's batteries won't be completely depleted.

In this case, however, the Mars Spirit rover is well passed its expiry date. With five years working in the planet, the mission has vastly exceeded even the wildest dreams of NASA's researchers. Also, keep in mind that Spirit's twin brother—Opportunity—is still working at the other side of the planet.

But still, seriously NASA, how can you send things that run on solar power to the dustiest planet in the Solar System and forget to include some kind of Windex cleaning device all the gear? Couldn't you guys add some kind of mini-Roomba to crawl the panels of the next one? [NASA and Daily Mail and Posts by Phoenix Mars Lander at Gizmodo]

Obligatory dust-related kick-ass song here:

The rockets of the aeroshell—a protective armor that will protect the MSL and guide it through its descent—will fire to steer the capsule towards the desired angle. When this is achieved, a long parachute will open to slow down the Mars Science Laboratory as it enters zooms down the Martian atmosphere. As soon as the capsule slows down, the heat shield will eject leaving the rover exposed inside the aeroshell, attached to the floating crane mechanism.

That's when the whole landing process gets weird: The floating crane's rockets will fire up to further slow the descent. The top part of the aeroshell will then detach completely, leaving the sky crane alone holding the MSL rover, slowly descending towards the planet's surface. A few hundred meters above the terrain, the floating sky crane will start lowering the rover down using "a trio of bridles and one umbilical cord" until it touches down. At that time, the sky crane will detach from the rover and fly away, probably to fall over the home of some poor old Martian grandma.

I don't know about you, but the whole operation mesmerizes me to no end.

The Phoenix straining its wiry little arm to scrape some ice off the ground isn’t a terribly impressive expression of NASA’s billions, but the Moonstream looks forward to a time when the space program’s spending will be a little more apparent. The pilot (or conductor, or driver, or Mom) navigates from a separate, elevated pod at the front of the vehicle, leaving the rest of the presumably large crew to do whatever they want in a cushy main cabin, furnished with all the amenities you would expect in a Martian tour bus.

The designer claims to have taken cues from nature, citing the turtle shells and the stance of giraffes as inspirations. To be completely honest though, it looks like a DLP projector with wheels. Anyway, all this Phoenix talk just serves to remind everyone how lame it is that we aren’t driving around on Mars already, and the Moonstream wouldn’t be a bad way to do it.
[Anthony Sims via DVICE]

So aside from the lasers (which will be able to disintegrate rocks up to 40 feet away) it'll have 3 cameras and an X-ray spectrometer (which is used to determine what elements are around the Rover). It's expected to be shot up to Mars in 2009. Look out, Martians. – Louis Ramirez

NASA's Next Mars Rover is a Laser-equipped Monster [Sci Fi Tech]

The two rovers were pretty much chowderheads when they first landed, but now they're quite a bit smarter because of their newly-uploaded software. Now they can be more picky about their choice of snapshots, recognizing that, for example, a rock they're looking at is the same one they saw earlier, but just from a different angle. This keeps the little robots from taking multiple pictures of the same thing.

Perhaps scientists will teach them how to reproduce, and then an entire population of the little droids will be there to meet their earthling overlords if we ever arrive. – Charlie White

Old Rovers Learn New Tricks to Kick Off Year Four [Red Orbit]