5 YEARS INTO THE MISSION
VANDI VERMA: And the public called this campaign Free Spirit. And it showed us that humans are capable of forming a connection and a bond with a robot. ANGELA BASSETT (V.O.) Rover Diary: Sol 2196. Spirit has been prepared for her winter sleep. ILM SFX ANIMATION: WS: The sun sets on Spirit, and Mars goes dark. Her solar arrays are facing away from the sun. We pan up to see the stars. ANGELA BASSETT (V.O.) Rover Diary: She is tucked into bed and now we all watch carefully for the signal, or lack thereof. KOBIE BOYKINS: As the rover starts to get hypothermia, she can’t communicate anymore. And then, either she wakes up the next morning, or she doesn’t wake up at all. ILM SFX ANIMATION: Same wide shot as the night before. We pan down from the morning sky as the sun rises, and Spirit is in the same place we left her. KOBIE BOYKINS: When the sun came back up, we’d listen, we’d try to hear, a whisper, a tone, anything. And we don’t. ASHLEY STROUPE: It did feel like we were watching a friend go in a lot of ways. I know people think it’s weird ’cause I sound like I’m talking about a person, but even though she wasn’t a person, she was still a huge part in all of our lives.
GFX LOWER THIRD: SOL 1900
GFX LOWER THIRD: 5 YEARS INTO THE MISSION
JENNIFER TROSPER: She had already had a broken wheel. And she had gotten a little bit embedded. And then another wheel broke, and it was getting close to winter. But I figured, knowing Spirit, that she’d figure it out.
PRODUCTION ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE ASHLEY STROUPE:
“This mound of rocks. This may be what we’re hung on right there. And both on Mars and in the test bed, as we drive it does sink.” PRODUCTION ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE Jen Hermann: “This first slide here just is an overview of the energy requirements for Spirit. The numbers in red are the ones where we won’t have enough energy to survive for an extended period of time.” ASHLEY STROUPE: So now it was really a race against the clock. We were making very slow progress, but we had to try and try to beat winter. And we started getting letters and phone calls from the public. This real sense of, you know, we have to do whatever it takes to save Spirit.
JENNIFER TROSPER: Spirit was our rugged and adventurous twin rover
and her environment required more of her. And so maybe it’s just because I was Spirit’s mission manager and I wanted her to be like me, but I feel like I connected with Spirit in that way. You know maybe she was just a little tired too after all her hard work.
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