Happy 7th Anniversary Spirit... hope we hear from you soon

It was 7 years ago today that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit landed on the plains within Gusev crater on Mars. We have gotten a lot of great science from Spirit and have learned a lot about Mars. Last year we lost contact with Spirit when it went into Martian winter with its solar panels not oriented sufficiently well to catch enough sunlight to keep it "awake" and communicating. So it has been hibernating, or perhaps worse, since then. With the sun getting higher in the sky though, Spirit could come back to life and start communicating. If it does, it will still be in a bad way with two inoperative wheels, but there is still a lot of good science that can be done with even a stationary platform. A good summary of Spirit's situation is here.