Spirit is on the move....

[Dookus]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3855168/

The Spirit rover's wheels have rolled for the first time on Mars, the mission team said Tuesday, and scientists have mapped out what the rover will do and most likely where it will die.

advertisement

Overnight, the golfcart-sized rover cut the final cord tying it to the landing platform that it came in on 10 days ago, then backed up about 10 inches (25 centimeters) and turned 45 degrees. These were the first maneuvers planned in preparation for having Spirit roll 10 feet (3 meters) down a ramp onto the Martian surface on Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.

"The engineering team is just elated that we're driving, finally," flight director Chris Lewicki told journalists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We cut our ties loose and we're ready to rove."

Scientists had hoped that the six-wheeled rover would be rolling on the surface by now, but its primary path off the landing platform was blocked by a couple of the airbags that cushioned the spacecraft's Jan. 3 descent. When the landing platform unfolded, those airbags failed to retract as fully as engineers had hoped. Thus, the engineering team is having to turn the rover 120 degrees on its platform to go down a secondary ramp. The turn is being done in three stages, and the final two stages are to come late Tuesday and early Wednesday.