Fully Controlled 6 Meters per Pixel Equatorial Mosaic of Mars From Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera Images, Version 1

Abstract

Abstract NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft has operated around Mars since March 2006. The Context Camera (CTX) aboard MRO has returned >125,000 images of Mars, mostly at 5–6 m per pixel (mpp), providing ≈99% coverage with good‐quality images. Reconstruction of MRO's orbit and camera pointing from ground tracking are offset from the Mars global coordinate system. This work focuses on correcting those data for the more than 50,000 images in the equatorial region of Mars, between ±30° latitude, which comprises 50% of Mars' surface area. Determining and making these corrections in a relative control (image‐to‐image) and absolute or full control (image‐to‐ground reference) greatly improves the utility of the image data. Based on this work, the 95th percentile of tie points were offset from the Mars coordinate system by ≈155 m, corresponding to ≈28 CTX pixels. Controlling the more than 50,000 images was accomplished through an efficient, automated approach with additional manual input and validation, described herein. The mosaic was generated with semi‐manual image order from these controlled data and is provided at both 6 mpp and 100 mpp. The mosaic is available to the community through NASA's Planetary Data System Imaging & Cartography Annex.

Keywords

• Mars
• mosaic
• geology
• cartography