Spirit's Look Ahead on Sol 1869

This scene combines three frames taken by the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit during the 1,869th Martian day, or sol, of Spirit's mission on Mars (April 6, 2009). It spans 120 degrees, with south at the center.

The view is from the position Spirit reached with a 17.5-meter (57-foot) southward drive on the preceding sol. The foreground includes terrain that the rover covered in its next two drives, when it traveled 12.7 meters (42 feet) southward on Sol 1870 (April 7, 2009) and an additional 7 meters (23 feet) on Sol 1871 (April 8, 2009).

On the far left of the image is the slope of the western edge of the low plateau called "Home Plate." On the right, in the middle distance, is a ridge called "Tsiolkovsky." Behind the saddle between Home Plate and Tsiolkovsky is a mound capped with light-toned rock and called "Von Braun," a possible destination for Spirit to investigate in the future.

Spirit was driving toward Von Braun when the rover became embedded in soft soil at a site called "Troy" by Sol 1899 (May 6, 2009). The soft soil at Troy was covered with a darker layer before Spirit's wheels broke through that top layer and revealed lighter material, so the site is inconspicuous in the middle distance toward Von Braun in this image.

This view is presented as a cylindrical projection with geometric seam correction.