NASA – ‘McMurdo’ Panorama from Spirit’s ‘Winter Haven’
To celebrate the 1,000th sol of the Spirit rover Mars mission, NASA has released a panorama.
Congratulations to NASA with this amazing success, makes you wonder what the next generation of rovers will achieve.
Oct. 26, 2006, marks Spirit’s 1,000th sol of what was planned as a 90-sol mission. (A sol is a Martian day, which lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35 seconds). The rover has lived through the most challenging part of its second Martian winter. Its solar power levels are rising again. Spring in the southern hemisphere of Mars will begin in early 2007. Before that, the rover team hopes to start driving Spirit again toward scientifically interesting places in the “Inner Basin” and “Columbia Hills” inside Gusev crater. The McMurdo panorama is providing team members with key pieces of scientific and topographic information for choosing where to continue Spirit’s exploration adventure.