The science and engineering teams overseeing NASA Mars rover Spirit have decided on a location for Spirit to spend the Martian winter: the northern edge of the elevated plateau known as "Home Plate," which Spirit has been exploring for many months now.
This decision maximizes the rover's chances of surviving another winter given the excessive coating of dust on the solar arrays.
As Project Manager John Callas announced in an e-mail, "the principal discriminator was the achievable slope at each site. The north side of 'Home Plate' offers slopes of 25 degrees of northerly tilt, while 'South Promontory' offers 20 degrees of northerly tilt. That difference is about 10 watt-hours per sol, which can mean the difference between surviving and not surviving the cold, dark winter."
Spirit remains healthy and all subsystems are nominal.
http://www.marstoday.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=25911
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