This image completes stereo coverage of one of the four candidate landing sites for Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the big, complex roving laboratory to be launched late this year.

This site appears surprisingly rough in places for a NASA landing site, but MSL will use a new landing system, a hovering “skycrane” that lowers the rover on cables so it lands on six wheels that can adjust to a rough surface.

Written by: Alfred McEwen   (2 March 2011)

This is a stereo pair with ESP_013533_1560 .

More info and image formats at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_020891_1560

Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona