Up on Mars, the rover Spirit seems to be either a) in trouble; b) making a bid for freedom or c) infiltrated by our Martian overlords. Over the weekend, NASA reports (press release) that Spirit “apparently rebooted its computer at least twice”. I’m not sure if that should read “Spirit’s computer crashed twice” or not.

The rovers do have a long history of being anthropomorphised, with NASA constantly reporting on their “health” and the things that they are seeing as they travel around Mars.

Indeed the latest news follows in the same ilk; “The rover is in a stable operations state called automode and taking care of itself,” says John Callas, project manager for the rovers. “We are aware of the reality that we have an aging rover, and there may be age-related effects here,” Callas adds.

The story of the beleaguered little rover is doing the rounds (Universe Today, AP, Tech Radar), but today’s thanks go to the Register for pointing out the timeliness of the Rover’s double resurrection. If only I’d thought of that first.

Image: Snapped by Spirit in March, courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech