The geek is bummed

Damn damn damn.

(CNN, January 22) - The Spirit rover has stopped transmitting data from Mars, NASA mission controllers said Thursday, but there were signs it is still operating at a basic level.

NASA scientists now have received a basic communication tone from the rover indicating it is alive but the solid flows of data that marked its first 18 days on Mars have stopped, said Richard Cook, deputy project manager, speaking from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

There are still options to get things back on track - if NASA can figure out what went wrong. The problem is, the telemetry they're not getting is what they'd need to do that. So for the moment, they're working in the dark.