It fell onto its wheels, kicking up a large cloud of soft dust. It was a silent affair. I was far enough away that the thin atmosphere had no hope of carrying the sound to me.

I untied the power line, liberated the drill bit, and returned to the rover. I gave it a full system’s check. That’s a boring-as-hell task, but I had to do it.

Every system and subsystem was working correctly. JPL did a damn good job making these rovers. If I get back to Earth, I’m buying Bruce Ng a beer. Though I guess I should buy all the JPL guys a beer.

Beers for everyone if I get back to Earth.

Anyway, with the rover back on its wheels it was time to work on the trailer. Problem is, I ran out of daylight. Remember, I’m in a crater.

I had gotten most of the way down the Ramp when I rolled the rover. And the Ramp is up against the western edge of the crater. So the sun sets really early from my point of view. I’m in the shadow of the western wall. And that royally sucks.

Mars is not Earth. It doesn’t have a thick atmosphere to bend light and carry particles that reflect light around corners. It’s damn near a vacuum here. Once the sun isn’t visible, I’m in the dark. Phobos gives me some moonlight, but not enough to work with. Deimos is a little piece of crap that’s no good to anyone.

I hate to leave the trailer sitting on its balloon for another night, but there’s not much else I can do. I figure it’s survived a whole day like that. It’s probably stable for now.

And hey, with the rover righted, I get to use the bedroom again! It’s the simple things in life that matter.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 500

When I woke up this morning, the trailer hadn’t popped yet. So that was a good start.

The trailer was a bigger challenge than the rover. I only had to tip the rover. I’d need to completely flip the trailer. That requires a lot more force than yesterday’s little leverage trick.

The first step was to drive the rover to near the trailer. Then came the digging.

Oh God, the digging.

The trailer was upside down, with its nose pointed downhill. I decided the best way to right it was to take advantage of the slope and roll the trailer over its nose. Basically to make it do a somersault to land on its wheels.

I can make this happen by tying off the cable to the rear of the trailer and towing with the rover. But if I tried that without digging a hole first, the trailer would just slide along the ground. I needed it to tip up. I needed a hole for the nose to fall into.

So I dug a hole. A hole one meter across, three meters wide, and one meter deep. It took me four miserable hours of hard labor, but I got it done.