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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society. 

Half of Concepcion crater

A pretty picture of Concepcion crater

It looks like the rover team thinks Concepcion is pretty enough (in both aesthetic and a scientific senses) to be worthy of the full-color Pancam panorama treatment; color frames started arriving on Earth over the weekend.

Solar system montage with eight planets

Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Rovers Pass 6-Year Milestone as Spirit Halts Extrication to Winter at Troy, Opportunity Cruises to Concepcion Crater

Five and a half years after they were supposed to be history, the Mars Exploration Rovers celebrated their sixth Earth year on the Red Planet with Opportunity pulling up to a fresh, new crater on the road to Endeavour, and Spirit working on repositioning itself to settle in for the coming Martian winter, and perhaps the rest of its mission.

Concepcion crater, Opportunity sol 2138

Opportunity's thousand-year-old crater

Since leaving Marquette Island on sol 2,122, Opportunity has been barreling southward on her journey toward Endeavour crater. On her horizon for the last several sols has been a very small but very fresh looking crater named Concepción.

Mars during the 2003 opposition

Awesome New Mars Flyovers

Check out these awesome flyovers of Mars, generated by Doug Ellison of UnmannedSpaceflight!

Mars Exploration Rover

NASA decides Spirit is henceforth to be a lander

There was a press briefing today that announced the official end of efforts to extricate Spirit from her sand trap at Troy. Instead, the rover drivers will now focus on improving the chances that Spirit will survive the coming winter so that she can carry on doing science once the power situation improves in the spring.

Spirit forward hazcam animation, sols 2078-2138

Spirit's still "extricating"

It's been two months, now, that extrication efforts have been going on. It's discouraging that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit isn't out of the trap.

Spirit at Troy

Worsening outlook for Spirit

I just got a press release from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that made my heart sink; the extrication effort for Spirit is not going at all well. I did not want to keep sounding a knell of bad news. But once in a while, I do have to report bad news.

A sol 2117 spin of Spirit's front wheels

Watch that front wheel spin!

Holy cow, look at that right front wheel spin. I am alternately amazed and horrified by this animation.

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