[GioFX]

Spirit also will participate in a first-of-a-kind joint project with the European Space Agency's recently arrived Mars Express orbiter.

"There's a remarkable event that's going to take place tomorrow where the Mars Express orbiter is going to go over our site and for the first time, we're going to be doing coordinated, international surface and orbit observations on the surface of another planet," Squyres said. "That's going to be really cool.

"Mars Express is going to be looking down with a very sophisticated suite of sensors at the very same time that we can look up and we can look at the terrain around us. So we'll be looking at the same patch of soil, looking through the same column of atmosphere at the same time Mars Express is going overhead. That's an opportunity not to be missed."