The bogged rover, Spirit remains silent at her location called “Troy” on the west side of Home Plate. No communication has been received from the rover since March 22nd 2010.

It is likely that Spirit has experienced a low-power fault and has turned off all sub-systems, including communication. The rover will use the available solar-array energy to recharge her batteries. When the batteries recover to a sufficient state of charge, Spirit will hopefully wake up and begin to communicate once again.

Unfortunately, it is not known when the rover will wake up again, so the project has been listening for any X-band signal from Spirit through the Deep Space Network every day. The Mars Odyssey orbiter is also listening out on the UHF band for any communication as it passes over the surface. The Martian winter solstice is still about a month away.

Opportunity, on the other hand is still busy, it has now surpassed 20 kilometres of total driving since it landed on Mars 75 months ago. It is now on its way to Endeavour Crater, which was its long term destination.

The team that operates NASA’s Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity will receive the 2010 International Space Ops Award for Outstanding Achievement, for remarkable success in meeting unique and varied challenges of operating a rover on Mars and establishing a model for future in-situ operations.

The Mars Exploration Rover Project landed the twin rovers on the Red Planet in January 2004 for missions that were initially planned to last for three months. The team has operated the rovers for more than six years, making major science discoveries, driving a combined total of more than 27.5 kilometres (17 miles) over often-challenging terrain, and tending them through three Martian winters and potentially mission-ending dust storms.