PIA12100: Filling the Simulated Sandtrap
Rover team members Mike Seibert (left) and Paolo Bellutta add a barrowful of soil mixture to the sloped box where a test rover will be used for assessing possible maneuvers for NASA's rover Spirit to use in escaping from a sandtrap on Mars.
Mission: Mars Exploration Rover (MER)
Spacecraft: Spirit
Product Size: 1704 samples x 1458 lines
Produced By: JPL
Full-Res TIFF: PIA12100.tif (7.465 MB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA12100.jpg (297.3 kB)

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Original Caption Released with Image:

Rover team members Mike Seibert (left) and Paolo Bellutta add a barrowful of soil mixture to the sloped box where a test rover will be used for assessing possible maneuvers for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit to use in escaping from a sandtrap on Mars. The test facility is in the In Situ Instrument Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The team finished preparing the test box on June 29, 2009, with plans for driving the test rover into it on June 30.

To see updates on the efforts to free the Spirit rover, visit the JPL Free Spirit website.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2009-06-30