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Watch that front wheel spin!

Posted By Emily Lakdawalla

2009/12/17 09:55 CST

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Holy cow, look at that right front wheel spin. I am alternately amazed and horrified by this animation. Spirit's been dragging that wheel as an anchor for years. Ridiculously, it has come back to life, and is spinning fine. But of course wheels shouldn't spin in place; they should roll forward. Spirit has seemingly traded one deeply buried functioning wheel for its unburied nonfunctioning wheel. The right rear wheel, which is totally buried, still shows no motion as far as I know. That pretty much defines the word "anchor." Spirit's still in deep trouble. But if a dead wheel can come back to life, who can say what's going to happen next? Stay tuned!

NASA / JPL / animation by Eduardo Tesheiner

A sol 2117 spin of Spirit's front wheels

On sol 2117, the right front wheel spun and spun, improbably resurrected from death. However, little forward progress was apparently made that day.