NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover

Attached is a 360 degree panorama assembled from 34 overlapping navigation camera images.

The drive was southwest, lasted 148 minutes and covered nearly 42 meters.

All the drive details and the maps are in the comments of this post

Last June Curiosity used its telescope to observe distant layered rocks, which revealed an anomalous texture that was hard to explain. Last month it arrived among rocks with a comparable texture that maybe can now be explained.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nev-t/

This mosaic of 15 deBayered left mast camera images was assembled in MS-ICE.

The mosaic covers the terrain directly in front of the rover, that's within reach of the tools and instruments installed on the turret of the rover's long robotic arm.

For scale the scene is a little of 6 feet wide (~2 meters)

Screenshot of the mission map with a 200m scale bar. Additional details in the comments for this post

Mosaic assembled from 15 overlapping Bayer reconstructed L-MastCam frames, assembled in MS-ICE

This self-portrait of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity combines dozens of exposures taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Feb. 3, 2013), plus three exposures taken during Sol 270 (May 10, 2013) to update the appearance of part of the ground beside the rover. The updated area, which is in the lower left quadrant of the image, shows gray-powder and two holes where Curiosity used its drill on the rock target "John Klein."

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Drive details

360 degree post-drive NavCam panorama assembled for 27 overlapping R-NavCam images using MS-ICE

Awaiting additional data from the rover regarding its new location and the updated map etc. This is a post drive composite R-NavCam mosaic

Roughly assembled from 15 overlapping images

MAHLI image of one of the rover's wheels. Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Map (with scale)

Drive data / stats

Partial panorama (missing the upper tier images)

Right click on images, select open in new window to view full size

A mosaic of 15 overlapping L-MastCam images.

The images were de-Bayered prior to being assembled in MS-ICE.

The details of the drive are included in the following table

This screen capture of the traverse map shows the path of the drive (yellow track). Each dot represents the end point of a drive. View the entire interactive map using this link

A ChemCam RMI mosaic from Sol 4841 posted by Kevin M. Gill to Flickr.

The mosaic looks South and features a towering layered cliff with the rugged yardang unit in the background.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/Kevin M. Gill

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image showing the rough, nodular texture in its workspace, using its Mast Camera (Mastcam). This image was taken on March 13, 2026 — Sol 4834, or Martian day 4,834 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 01:22:42 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, APXS Strategic Planner and Payload Uplink/Downlink Lead, University of New Brunswick, Canada

Earth planning date: Friday, March 13, 2026

We are in our final phase of the boxwork campaign, investigating the contacts between the boxwork unit and the layered sulfate unit. As my colleague Bill reported here, last week we crossed out of the boxwork unit back into the underlying layered sulfate unit and then back into the boxwork unit for our Monday plan. We are now driving southward across the uppermost portion of the boxwork unit. This unit is characterized by smooth bedrock where the boxwork structures are not as obvious as they were back at our “Nevado Sajama” drill sites, where we took our boxwork “postcard.”

This past week, our goal was to characterize as much as we could before leaving. On Monday, MAHLI imaged the targets (all named after geographic locations around the Andes in South America) “Piedras Bonitas” and “La Calera” — the latter was brushed bedrock also analyzed by APXS. On Friday, MAHLI and APXS analyzed a brushed, nodular bedrock at “Jaruma” and a larger nodule (or cluster of smaller nodules) at the unbrushed “Constancia.” (Click on the name to see the MAHLI images!)

Mastcam had a very busy week! Typically, as we come toward the end of a science campaign, the wish list of Mastcam targets gets very large, and the ending of this boxwork campaign is following that tradition. Mastcam acquired two mosaics on the southern contact between the boxworks and layered sulfate unit: an 18x1 mosaic (i.e., 18 frames along one row) on Monday and 19x3 mosaic (“El Misti”) on Friday. These will be key to helping us understand the origin and evolution of the boxwork unit. Other mosaics include “Yungas” (a highly veined area), “Ujina” (looking at cross-sectional stratigraphy (both on Monday) and two mosaics on Friday on the target “Salar de Maricunga” (to characterize light-toned bedrock in the drive direction).

We did not neglect our environmental monitoring either. We continue to monitor dust in the atmosphere using different tools, including Navcam dust-devil monitoring and surveys, zenith and suprahorizon movies, and Mastcam taus.

The weekend drive is planned to take us about 23 meters to the west-southwest (about 75 feet) as we get closer and closer to leaving the boxwork unit. I have been a member of the boxwork working group (we call ourselves the “Fracture Townies”) since its inception about two years before we ever put a wheel on the unit. It is bittersweet to be so close to the end of this campaign, but we have so much data and imagery from here to work with, we won’t have too much time to be sad.

The mosaic is assembled from 15 overlapping images from the rover's left side mast camera (L-MastCam)

Drive details

Map (50 meter scale bar)

Looks like a good drive. I'll post the drive details and additional images once they come down from the rover :)

This panorama is assembled from 31 overlapping post-drive R-NavCam images. Looks to me that the rover is closing in on the last sections of the box-work terrain where it made some interesting discoveries. Once it completes its activities at this area, it will begin its journey further south and higher up the slopes of Mt Sharp in Gale crater. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of a pitted vertical rock face dubbed “Timboy Chaco,” using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm. MAHLI uses an onboard process to merge multiple images of the same target, making a composite that brings as many features as possible into focus. Curiosity performed the merge on March 5, 2026 — Sol 4827, or Martian day 4,827 of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission — at 19:56:40 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Written by William Farrand, Senior Research Scientist, Space Science Institute

Earth planning date: Friday, March 6, 2026

Curiosity is in the last stage of its exploration of the spiderweb-like boxwork unit. This stage consists of exploring the eastern and southern borders of this terrain. There were two multi-sol plans assembled this week. The previous plan put Curiosity at a site on the eastern extent of the boxwork unit with bedrock that allowed for brushing and in-place measurements with APXS and MAHLI of the bedrock target “Infiernillo.” The ChemCam also took a LIBS chemical measurement of this target as well as a nodular-rich piece of bedrock assigned the name “Humahuaca.” MAHLI was tasked to image a pitted vertical rock face which was dubbed “Timboy Chaco” (part of which is shown in the MAHLI color image accompanying this report). Mastcam color mosaics and ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaics were also collected to characterize nearby terrain including a butte to the south and the geologic contact between the boxwork terrain and the adjacent layered, light-toned unit.

A midweek drive put the rover even closer to the eastern edge of the boxwork unit and set it up for two or more drives to the southern edge of the boxwork. The workspace present for Friday planning included bedrock exposures and a dark-toned float rock. The float rock was large enough for in-situ observation by APXS, and it was also targeted for up-close imaging by MAHLI and a measurement by ChemCam to observe its reflectance properties. Some other dark float rocks observed by Curiosity in the past year have been hypothesized as being stony meteorites (chondrites). Measuring the chemistry and reflectance of this dark rock, named “Thola,” will allow the team to determine if it is native to Mars or a meteorite from beyond. The Friday plan also included ChemCam remote chemistry measurements of the smooth bedrock target “Valle Fertil” and a nodular bedrock target “Norte Grande.” The plan also included Mastcam mosaics of light-toned bedrock across the eastern contact of the boxwork unit to assess sedimentary structures and determine stratigraphic relationships, observations of smaller troughs in the regolith, and other mosaics of nearby ridges as well as a two-frame mosaic of the dark float rock Thola and another dark-toned pebble.

The plan concludes with a drive toward the southern border of the boxwork unit. Given that this southern contact is approximately 100 meters (about 109 yards) away, it will likely require two drives.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam), showing the rover’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument investigating a target. APXS is a spectrometer that measures the abundance of chemical elements in rocks and soils, is about the size of a cupcake, and is located on the turret at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm. Curiosity captured this image on Feb. 26, 2026 — Sol 4820, or Martian day 4,820 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 13:03:08 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Ashley Stroupe, Operations Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 27, 2026

This week we had three planning sessions, exploring the eastern side of the boxwork unit. As a Rover Planner on Monday, I worked on the arm and drive activities, while on Friday I served as the Engineering Uplink Lead (planning all of our engineering activities like heating and managing our onboard data). We had two small drives this week to put different targets into our workspace for each plan. The months-long careful and systematic investigation of the boxwork unit will hopefully provide the science team insights on what was going on in this area of Mars that resulted in this interesting and unique terrain. As we wrap it up, we are already thinking ahead to our future investigations of the sulfate unit, where we will be heading after finishing here and continuing our climb up Mount Sharp.

With three plans and short drives, we were able to do a total of 19 Mastcam stereo mosaics, getting a full 360-degree panorama as well as additional documentation of the nearby ridges/hollows and the nearby sulfate unit. Some of the rocks in the hollows show a return of the polygonal structures that we saw in abundance prior to entering the boxwork unit, but have only seen sparsely in other hollows. As we are entering deeper into the warmer months, the start of dust-storm season, we have also been doing a lot of atmospheric measurements. We did multiple observations of the crater rim (to watch it fading into the haze), Mastcam solar Tau measurements (looking at the Sun to measure dust in the atmosphere), dust-devil movies, and other sky observations.

We investigated a total of four targets with MAHLI and APXS, two of which we were able to brush. The accompanying image shows the APXS down on one of the targets near the contact. Most of the targets were not very complicated for the Rover Planners because the rocks have been mostly smooth and flat. But our Wednesday target, “Los Monos,” was slightly under the front of the rover, and we had to do some additional intermediate arm motions to reach underneath safely. We won’t actually know if today’s targets are on the other side of the contact (in the sulfate unit) or not until we can study the data.

Planning the short drives has been interesting, as with most of the boxwork unit drives, because we must navigate around the sand and steeper slopes in hopes of minimizing slip. In this weekend’s plan our drive will head south towards the southern end of the boxwork unit, where the terrain smooths out a bit and driving should be easier.

Drive to site 120.2192 during Sol 4823 (March 1, 2026). Post-drive 360 R-NavCam panorama, roughly assembled in MS-ICE. I'll add the details (map & drive data) ASAP. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Sol 4820 (February 26, 2026)

Curiosity drives to site 120.2102. Awaiting map and JSON files to document the new location.

Post-drive 360 R-NavCam, roughly assembled in MS-ICE

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech