October 03, 2016

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in September 2016 at "Murray Buttes," and the path planned for reaching destinations at "Hematite Unit" and "Clay Unit" on lower Mount Sharp.

Blue triangles mark waypoints investigated by Curiosity during the rover's two-year prime mission and first two-year extended mission.  The Hematite Unit and Clay Unit are key destinations for the second two-year extension, through September 2018.

The base image for the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. North is up. Bagnold Dunes form a band of dark, wind-blown material at the foot of Mount Sharp.

The scale bar at lower right represents one kilometer (0.62 mile).  For broader-context images of the area, see http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17355, http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16064  and http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16058.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about the Mars Science Laboratory mission and the mission's Curiosity rover, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.nasa.gov/msl.

Credits

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

ENLARGE

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