Spirit’s Mars mission reaches 100 days

The Spirit rover has been operating on the surface of Mars for 100 Martian days, NASA officials said Thursday.

Spirit, which landed on the planet on Jan. 3, has been exploring the surface in a vast impact basin called Gusev Crater, where scientists think the robot lander has a good chance of finding evidence that water once flowed.

So far, the solar-powered, 150-pound (Martian weight) lander has driven hundreds of yards from its landing site and now is headed across Gusev toward an elevated terrain called Columbia Hills. The hills were named in honor of shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated while attempting to enter Earth’s atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2003.

Spirit’s twin, Opportunity, continues to operate halfway around Mars, at a site called Meridiani Planum, where it landed on Jan. 23.

After a computer glitch interfered with Spirit’s operation last week, mission controllers uploaded new software to update both of the NASA rovers. The new software should improve the vehicles’ ability to drive greater distances each day through better autonomous navigation, controllers said.

NASA has extended the missions of the rovers — originally scheduled to end this month — through September.