PASADENA, Calif., Nov. 23 (UPI) -- NASA said after more than 300 days on Mars, the Spirit rover remains in excellent health.
After passing through the Martian winter and with the sun still relatively low on the horizon in the early spring season, mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been forced to seek driving routes that keep the rover and its solar panels tilted northward for energy reasons. That constraint, plus the rocky terrain, will challenge rover drivers in the coming weeks, they said.
Spirit's mission has not been trouble-free, however. Over the last few weeks, the rover has experienced electrical problems with its steering motors and its chassis.
Nevertheless, controllers are going to keep Spirit rolling until the rover finally quits. In coming Martian days -- called sols -- they are sending Spirit to an ascent toward an area they call Machu Picchu in the Columbia Hills, with stops along the way to examine interesting rocks.
Spirit landed last January in a large, flat expanse near the equator called Gusev crater, a site that has since yielded evidence that water once flowed there.
