Curiosity May Land in Gale Crater

The next NASA mission to Mars may land inside a landscape feature called Gale Crater. Scientists announce that this crater may be the front-runner in the race to select a final landing spot for Curiosity.

The Mars Science Laboratory is arguably the most complex robotic mission ever sent to another planet. It features the largest and heaviest rover of all times – dubbed Curiosity – as well as the innovative Sky Crane deployment system.

But, for all the effort put into building the machine, experts still don't know where it will land once it reaches the Red Planet. At this point, there are four major candidate sites, each of which has its own advantages and drawbacks.

The final decision is expected to be made today, June 24. NASA Associate Administrator Ed Weiler has the final word in this regard, and he is expected to make a formal announcement about his decision sometime next week.

Deciding where to send Curiosity is nearly as difficult as it was to put the $2.5 billion rover together. Of the massive number of candidate sites, the final four were selected precisely because they offer significant advantages over the others.

By landing at each of them, the MSL could produce and return relevant scientific data, that would further our understanding of Martian geology, atmospheric cycle, and also improve our knowledge of how the solar system and the rocky inner worlds came to be.

Gale Crater is a 150-kilometer-wide feature, and experts on the panel that will decide where MSL lands seem to believe that this makes it the most appropriate choice. One of the things that separates it from its competitors is the high diversity of geologic materials it contains.

Preliminary observations of the area have revealed the existence of different minerals arranged in stratigraphical context, which will most likely represent a gold mine for Curiosity's complex array of scientific instruments.

“Stratigraphy records multiple early Mars environments in sequential order. Gale is characteristic of a family of craters that were filled, buried and exhumed, and will provide insights into an important Martian process,” planetary scientist and committee member Matt Golombek said earlier this year.

On the other hand, “all the sites are scientifically rich and safe for landing, with small differences between them,” he added. Early investigations of the craters were conducted using the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), Universe Today reports.

“The amount of data we have beforehand is unprecedented in Mars exploration,” the planetary scientist explained. He said that the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera can provide images at a resolution level of 25 centimeters per pixel.

This means that “we can see one meter-size boulders directly on the surface and we have almost complete coverage of the landing ellipses. CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars) provides visible and near infrared data to show mineralogy,” he concluded.