Posted by tourdemars to Mars Exploration Rovers at January 29, 2009 12:26 PM

It is spring at Gusev Crater on Mars, which would be good news for NASA's Spirit Rover--except that Spirit, moving around after a long, hard winter, seems sporadically to have lost its mind. Last Sunday, NASA says, the rover sent a signal confirming it had received its driving instructions for the day from earth, but when it next reported in, it had not moved. That can happen for many reasons -- it often has, in fact -- but there was more going on. The rover had no recollection, if you will, of what it had been doing; it hadn't recorded its main functions in its computer memory.