THEMIS Support for MSL

Data from THEMIS helped scientists choose a landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), NASA's next-generation rover spacecraft, due to arrive at Gale Crater in August 2012.

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:

Robin L. Fergason rfergason@usgs.gov    

Image information and instructions

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 “ignore value” for these mosaics is “0” (zero).
 
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:
            Simple cylindrical
            Ocentric
            Clon: 180.0
            Clat: 0.0
            Lonsys: 360.0
 
 
Additional MSL Mission Information
 
 
Data from instruments orbiting Mars that are targeting these sites can be viewed at the following websites:

MRO-CRISM MSL Support
            Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars
MRO-HiRISE MSL Image Catalog
            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

USGS MSL Support