The 1-ton Curiosity Mars rover has been traveling long distances in the past few months and had to start driving in reverse this week to preserve its wheels.
The hardworking rover covered 329 feet on Tuesday in a backward maneuver intended to reduce wear and tear on the robot's six metal wheels, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
"We wanted to have backwards driving in our validated toolkit because there will be parts of our route that will be more challenging," Curiosity project manager Jim Erickson, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement quoted by The Christian Science Monitor.
The robot traveled over fairly smooth ground on Tuesday, but its wheels have increasingly sustained "dings and holes" during the last few months, according to NASA officials.
Curiosity is on its way to the base of Mount Sharp, which is 3.4 miles high, where it will study environmental changes in the area. The rover recently traveled over a sand dune to begin wheeling across Moonlight Valley. The area should give the machine a bit of a break when it comes to wear and tear on the wheels.
"After we got over the dune, we began driving in terrain that looks like what we expected based on the orbital data," Erickson said. "There are fewer sharp rocks, many of them are loose, and in most places there's a little bit of sand cushioning the vehicle."
The rover should make its way to Mount Sharp by June, conducing scientific research along the way that includes studying rocks at a site called Kimberley.
The NASA team behind Curiosity will use orbital imagery to figure out the best route for the rover.
"We have changed our focus to look at the big picture for getting to the slopes of Mount Sharp, assessing different potential routes and different entry points to the destination area," Erickson said, as quoted by The Christian Science Monitor. "No route will be perfect; we need to figure out the best of the imperfect ones."
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