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I'm Ashley one of the drivers for the

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Mars rovers spirit and opportunity and

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I'm here with the latest rover update

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Spirit has been having some real

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challenges lately after making some good

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progress towards her science target von

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Braun hill and Goddard depression she

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slipped into some loose soft soil and is

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now partly embedded this embedding is

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made even more complicated by the fact

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that the rover is at a sharp tilt to the

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side and there are some rocks underneath

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the rover one of these rocks may be

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contacting the belly of the rover and

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causing us some additional friction

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another one may be wedged against the

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left middle wheel and be the cause of a

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recent stall we saw on that wheel the

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team is doing a lot of analysis and

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ground-based testing to try to

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understand spirit situations and figure

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out how best to get her out of it the

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public has been giving us tremendous

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support many of you have even sent us

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ideas on how to get spirit out including

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this idea then to us by seven year old

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Julian to use the robotic arm to help

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lift us out while the robotic arm isn't

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strong enough to lift the rover even on

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Mars we are putting it to good use we

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recently used the microscopic camera on

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the arm take pictures underneath the

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rover we're seeing parts of the vehicles

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that haven't been seen since she left

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Earth six years ago but most importantly

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we're now able to have a much better

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understanding of spirit situation and

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we're going to put that to really good

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used when we figure out how to get her

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out happily spiritus also had some

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really great surprises recently she's

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had several dust cleaning events of her

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solar panels courtesy of the Martian win

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for solar panels which were 75% covered

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with dust only two months ago are now

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less than twenty percent covered her

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power levels have increased to more than

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four times the minimum we saw during

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winter this gives her a much better

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chance of reaching her neck science

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target and surviving get a fourth winter

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on Mars meanwhile on the other side of

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the planet opportunity is doing quite

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well

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and making great progress towards

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endeavor crater in the southeast T's

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even reached a major milestone on Saul

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1899 she passed a ten mile mark now we

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are seeing some slightly elevated

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electrical currents on the right front

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wheel but we've developed some

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strategies that seem to keep those

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current flow we're driving sometimes

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forward and sometimes backwards we also

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are taking shorter drives and taking

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more extended rest between drive in the

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next couple of weeks we have a big

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decision to make this decision involves

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whether to take a shorter path that goes

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through some very tall stand ripples or

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a longer path that takes us more safely

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around though triple we could be

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reaching and ever crater as early as the

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fall of 2010 and we really look forward

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to seeing what we discover there I'm