Engineers on Earth have been busy of late trying to extract the Opportunity Mars rover from a soft dune. The robot is less than a kilometer (just over half a mile) from the large "Victoria Crater."

During the last planned drive on sol 833, the rover became embedded in the dune. As designed, the drive was stopped by a slip check. The extraction process began on sol 836, with 16 feet (5 meters) of commanded motion, and 3.5 inches (9 centimeters) of actual forward progress.

The results were encouraging, and extraction exercises were ordered to be continued.

Opportunity is otherwise healthy and continues to conduct atmospheric and targeted remote sensing on the path south...slogging onward to Victoria Crater.

--Leonard David