Suggested Searches

2 min read

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Scoping Out Next Study Area

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Apr 03, 2014
Article
This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Curiosity Mars in its approach to and April 1, 2014, arrival at a waypoint called “the Kimberley,” which rover team scientists chose in 2013 as the location for the mission’s next major investigations.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

On Wednesday, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover drove the last 98 feet feet (30 meters) needed to arrive at a site planned since early 2013 as a destination for studying rock clues about ancient environments that may have been favorable for life.

The rover reached a vantage point for its cameras to survey four different types of rock intersecting in an area called “the Kimberley,” after a region of western Australia.

“This is the spot on the map we’ve been headed for, on a little rise that gives us a great view for context imaging of the outcrops at the Kimberley,” said Melissa Rice of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Rice is the science planning lead for what are expected to be several weeks of observations, sample-drilling and onboard laboratory analysis of the area’s rocks.

With arrival at this location, Curiosity has driven at total of 3.8 miles (6.1 kilometers) since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012.

This view from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover was taken the day before the rover’s final approach drive to “the Kimberley” waypoint, selected months ago as the location for the mission’s next major investigations. It combines several frames taken by the Navigation Camera on April 1, 2014.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The mission’s investigations at the Kimberley are planned as the most extensive since Curiosity spent the first half of 2013 in an area called Yellowknife Bay. At Yellowknife Bay, the one-ton rover examined the first samples ever drilled from rocks on Mars and found the signature of an ancient lakebed environment providing chemical ingredients and energy necessary for life.

At the Kimberley and, later, at outcrops on the slope of Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, researchers plan to use Curiosity’s science instruments to learn more about habitable past conditions and environmental changes.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The project designed and built Curiosity and operates the rover on Mars.

This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover from the “Bradbury Landing” location where it landed in August 2012 (the start of the line in upper right) to a major waypoint called “the Kimberley.”
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

For more information about Curiosity, visit https://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. You can follow the mission on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at  http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov
2014-104