Mars Sample Return HiRISE Mosaics for Terrain Relative Navigation

In order to support the landing and operations of NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) previously generated Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and orthoimage mosaics of the floor of Jezero crater. Over four years of operations, Perseverance has collected numerous samples while climbing the western rim of Jezero and has travelled beyond the extent of the existing DEM products. Continued operations of Perseverance, and the eventual return of samples from on-board the rover (i.e., Mars Sample Return – MSR), require a new set of high-fidelity cartographic products that extend westward from the floor of Jezero crater and include regions within the rover’s potential traverse path. In 2023-2024, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) worked in coordination with the USGS Astrogeology Science Center to generate new DEM and orthoimage mosaics from 8 High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) stereo pairs covering this region. The DEM and orthoimage mosaics are rigorously aligned to the existing DEMs of Jezero crater and are fit for rover navigation and hazard mapping to within the accuracies described below, and the limitations (pixel scale and post spacing) of the data.