Panoramic view sent from Mars

A full 360-degree panorama will come in a few days

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The US space agency's Spirit rover on Mars has returned its first colour panoramic view of the Red Planet.

The stunning new images downloaded from the probe will allow the Nasa science team to better understand the site where the vehicle has touched down.

Spirit is reported to be in excellent health as engineering checks continue to prepare it for its mission to explore Gusev Crater.

Spirit is due to begin investigating the Martian landscape next week.

The composite picture comprises one-eighth of a total 360-degree view of the landing site around the rover.

But Spirit has completed a full panoramic colour view of its landing site in the Gusev Crater, which should be obtained in the next few days.

Nasa scientists say an airbag designed to protect the rover during landing is still lying in the way of its path to the Martian surface, despite attempts to lower it on Wednesday.

Airbag problem

"We were not successful in doing that yesterday," said Matt Wallace, mission manager for Spirit's sixth day of operations.

"We have talked over the last several hours and come up with a plan for tomorrow. What we're going to do is retract that airbag a further six revolutions. We retracted it by three revolutions yesterday."

There have been concerns Spirit could hit the airbag with its solar panel if it rolled on to the Martian surface now.

The rover team will attempt to pull the airbag under the lander using small motorised cables, or tendons.

One possible reason for the difficulty in retracting the airbag is that a tendon holding it could have snapped.

Regardless of what happens with the airbag, Nasa team members plan to stand Spirit up in preparation for an "egress" or departure from the lander.

If the attempt to gather up the airbags on Friday is not successful, Spirit could leave via an alternative ramp, but this could be risky.

Anxious thoroughbred

"If [the airbag retraction] is successful, we will most likely plan an egress off the front. If it is not successful we have several other options. One of these is to turn to the right 120 degrees," said Mr Wallace.

But he added that everyone was in agreement that the one they were presently looking at was the safest.

"It's a thoroughbred and it's anxious to get out the starting gate," he added.

The earliest the rover will get to leave its landing pad now is Wednesday.

No particular spots on the landscape have yet been firmly targeted for investigation.

But Dr Jim Bell, of Cornell University, said he still wanted to explore the presumed impact crater the scientists have dubbed "Sleepy Hollow".

Dr Bell said that light colours inside the crater could be deeper rock that had been exposed or a product of some kind of evaporation process.