THEMIS Support for MSL

MSL's mission is to collect Martian soil and rock samples, and analyze them for organic compounds, looking for environmental conditions that could have supported microbial life now or in the past.  At a workshop in October 2009, scientists chose 4 sites (PDF) as possible landing site locations.  After that, several additional sites were proposed and evaluated for both scientific merit and engineering feasibility. NASA chose Gale Crater as the final landing site in 2011.

 

The objective of this work is to improve our understanding of the physical and mineralogical characteristics of the surface at the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) candidate landing sites and to aid in the selection of a final landing location by generating THEMIS-derived daytime infrared (IR), nighttime IR, visible, thermal inertia, and decorrelation stretched mosaics for each MSL candidate landing site. These mosaics are generated in collaboration with the United States Geologic Survey Astrogeology Science Center (Robin L. Fergason).

 

For questions regarding these data products, contact:

The ISIS cube file can be loaded into JMARS as a custom map.

 

For instructions on how to load a custom map, see this site.

 

The PNG file is an 8-bit data file that can be viewed using most image viewer software (such as XV, Adobe Photoshop, or Adobe Illustrator).

 

Geo-TIFF and PNG/Worldfile/PNG Porjection Auxiliary data products can be imported into the Arc GIS software package. The projection information for these images is:

 

 

 

Additional information about the MSL mission is available at:

MSL Mission Overview (website)
MSL Mission Overview (PDF)
MSL Mission Engineering Constraints (PDF)
NASA's Mars Exploration Strategy (website)

 

Data from instruments orbiting Mars that are targeting these sites can be viewed at the following websites:

MRO-CRISM MSL Support

            Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
Mars Express HRSC MSL Support
            Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera
MGS-MOC Landing Site Support (MSL and others)
            Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MARSOWEB