Scarecrow Rover Desert Tests

This video (part 1 of a 4 part series) shows engineers testing a new parachute in the largest wind tunnel on Earth for the Curiosity rover prior to its landing on August 2012.

Mission team members share their excitement and reflections on the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover.

This image was taken inside a large 'clean room,' where ATLO (Assembly, Testing, and Launch Operations) is taking place for the Mars Science Laboratory mission. In the foreground on the right are e...

How do you prepare to land a one-ton rover lightly on the surface of Mars? Practice!

This map of Mars shows 4 possible landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory. Aslo shown are the landing sites for past missions; Phoenix, Viking 1, Viking 2 Pathfinder, Opportunity and Spirit.

For at least a couple of days, the science team of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is focused on a full-bore science campaign at a tantalizing, rocky site informally called "Darwin."

This color panorama shows a 360-degree view of the landing site of NASA's Curiosity rover, including the highest part of Mount Sharp visible to the rover. That part of Mount Sharp is approximately ...

Mars Rover Photosynth

A Russian-built, neutron-shooting instrument on the Curiosity rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will check for water-bearing minerals in the ground beneath the rover.

This illustration portrays possible ways methane might be added to Mars' atmosphere (sources) and removed from the atmosphere (sinks). NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has detected fluctuations in metha...

The team responsible for the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on NASA's Curiosity rover has made the first definitive detection of organic molecules at Mars.

Mars scientists used images from the Mars Exploration Rovers to help them with their recent simulation 'games' for the Mars Science Laboratory rover. This image from the Spirit rover was used by th...

This full-resolution image shows one of the first views from NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (early morning hours Aug. 6 EDT).

Curiosity performs a series of firsts this week -- flexing its arm, laser-zapping a rock and rolling on its wheels.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has detected sulfur, chlorine, and oxygen compounds in fine grains scooped by the rover at a wind drift site called "Rocknest."

This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the great diversity of grains found on the surface of a Martian rock.

This animation first shows Curiosity working to understand Mars as a past habitat, with a cut to MAVEN arriving at Mars to study the upper Martian atmosphere. (Audio: music and mechanical sounds only)

This sped-up movie from the Curiosity rover shows Phobos (the larger of Mars' two moons) passing in front of smaller Deimos. (No audio)

This sequence of images shows a blast zone where the sky crane from NASA's Curiosity rover mission hit the ground after setting the rover down in August 2012, and how that dark scar's appearance ch...

This image of a Martian rock illuminated by ultraviolet LEDs (light emitting diodes) is part of the first set of nighttime images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the...

This image shows a dry streambed on an alluvial fan in the Atacama Desert, Chile, revealing the typical patchy, heterogeneous mixture of grain sizes deposited together.

A group of journalists take part in a field trip to learn about the clues hidden in the rock layers with Curiosity Project Scientist, John Grotzinger.

This graphic shows the pattern of winds predicted to be swirling around and inside Gale Crater, which is where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars.

This map traces where NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drove between landing at a site subsequently named "Bradbury Landing," and the position reached during the mission's 123rd Martian day, or sol, (De...

About the size of a small SUV, NASA's Curiosity rover is well equipped for a tour of Gale Crater on Mars.