PASADENA, Calif. -- A robot patiently sitting on the surface of Mars has received its first marching orders.

Scientists have charted where the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover is to journey once the robots wheels hit the dirt. After driving off its perch, Spirit will first analyze neighborhood soil and rock, then travel to a nearby crater.

Spirit is now ready for action, with a final cable cutting fully-freeing the rover from its landing platform. The robots wheels have all checked out and are ready to roll into Gusev Crater.

Touchdown on Mars for Spirit -- when all six wheels are to sit on the martian surface -- is slated for tomorrow night into the early morning hours of Thursday.

"It was a fantastic daySpirit is a rover," said Chris Lewicki, JPL Flight Director for the Mars Exploration Rover project, during a morning press briefing here. The robot backed up a bit, then oriented itself 45 degrees clockwise from where it sat, the first of a three-part turn to get into a final egress direction.

"The engineering team is just elated that were driving finally," Lewicki said. "We cut our ties loose and were ready to rove."

Two more turn-in-place maneuvers are on the schedule for tomorrow, Lewicki told SPACE.com . "That will get us aligned down the runway," he said.

Spirit will drive down a ramp onto Mars. "Im looking forward to getting six wheels on the soil," Lewicki added. New images of where the robots wheels are headed show it clear of rocks and any other surprise obstacles, he said.

Joe Guinn, JPL Navigation Team Member for the Mars rovers, said Spirits touchdown spot at Gusev Crater has been pinpointed down to a 100 feet (30 meter) patch on Mars. Images taken by the robots Panoramic Camera (Pan Cam) system of the surrounding scene have helped gauge exactly where the robot is now parked.

Using that data, coupled with overhead imagery clicked by the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey -- two NASA Mars orbiters -- is letting experts outline Spirits science trail.

"Wow! ...Is that a technical term?" exclaimed Tim Parker, JPL Science Team Member and a Landing Site Mapping Scientist. "This is just a hoot," he said, in helping to decide where Spirit will explore.

"We know where we are nowand we know where we are going," said Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator for the Mars Rover effort from Cornell University.

As would be the case for any explorer that just got his or her bearings, a mission-long traverse for Spirit can now be sketched out.

Once Spirit has its Mars legs and taken initial soil and rock measurements at its landing site, "an extremely attractive target" is some 800 feet (200 meters) away, Squyres said. An impact crater located there has excavated subsurface material an ideal feature rich in science information.

How close the rover will drive up and then steer itself to the crater rim is a decision to be made on the move.

"It will provide a window into the subsurface of Mars," Squyres said. In surveying that crater scientists will have seen as deep into the red planet as feasible on Spirits mission -- it is the largest crater accessible at the moment.

The crater that Spirit will inspect up-close and personal has not been named as yet, Parker said.

"Id vote to go inside the crater," said Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. "The dunes inside the crater are going to be really pretty," he said.

Malin, a rover science team member, said the physical makeup of dunes on Mars is still being argued.

"If it is sand that would be great stuff for this rover to drive over. If its dustwell, we dont know how you make dust dunes. So it would be a huge leap in our understanding," Malin said.

After the crater stop, Squyres said, "were going toward the hills" -- clearly visible in Pan Cam photography.

"I cannot tell you that were going to reach those hills," Squyres cautioned.

About the size of a riding mower, Spirit was built to traverse some 1,970 feet (600 meters). "These hills are five times that far away," with the closest part of those features roughly 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) distant.

Although the rover might not make the whole traverse, the view from Spirit of whats now called the "eastern hills" will get better and better.

"Well see what we seeI dont know how its going to turn out," Squyres said.

Parker told SPACE.com that the rover could well last beyond a projected 90 days on Mars. "I think well make itthats my gut feeling."

Putting those hills in Spirits cross-hairs is going to be a "shared adventure" that is unprecedented in human history, Squyres said. "I think its going to be a lot of fun."