Photos: Mars rover Spirit down but not out

The Mars rover Spirit is gathering strength from its solar collectors, but for now remains stuck in place while engineers back on Earth attempt to free the wayward robot.

Spirit got stuck in the soft soil about two months ago at a location called Troy on the west side of a rocky outcropping known as Home Plate. The development is unfortunate, but the rover has been anything but a disappointment. Spirit landed on Mars on January 4, 2004, to begin what was intended to be a 90-sol mission of geologic exploration of the Martian surface (a sol is a Martian day).

Spirit has gone on to function on Mars for far longer than scientists had planned, conducting extensive analysis of the Martian soils.

Here, on the 1,871st Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission (our April 8th, 2009), Spirit looks toward the southeast at a mound on the horizon informally called "Von Braun."