Gale Crater

A grid of small polygons on the Martian rock surface near the right edge of this view may have originated as cracks in drying mud more than 3 billion years ago. Multiple Dec. 20, 2016, images from ...

This image from NASA's Mars Curiosity rover shows the "Amargosa Valley," on the slopes leading up to Mount Sharp on Mars.

NASA's Curiosity rover captured its highest-resolution panorama of the Martian surface between Nov. 24 and Dec. 1, 2019.

Engineers put the rover through thousands of hours of testing. They did drop tests; pull tests; drive tests; load tests, and many other tests to get Curiosity ready for launch.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this mound of rock nicknamed “East Cliffs” on May 7, 2022, the 3,466th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. 

Color coding in this image of Gale Crater on Mars represents differences in elevation, with blue relatively low and tan relatively high.

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians process the heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).

Southern Meridiani

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 ...

Engineers just installed six new wheels on the Curiosity rover, and rotated all six wheels at once on July 9, 2010.

This view from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows the downwind side of a dune about 13 feet high within the Bagnold Dunes field on Mars. The rover's Navigation Camera took the component images on De...

This patch of bedrock, called "Cumberland," has been selected as the second target for drilling by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

Meet some of the women team members and hear about the exciting and challenging jobs they do in science and engineering while working with Mars rover Curiosity.

During pre-flight testing, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took this image of the MAHLI calibration target from a distance of 3.94 inches (10 centimeters) aw...

This photograph of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, was taken during mobility testing on June 3, 2011. The location is inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propul...

This image shows preparation for March 2011 testing of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, in a 25-foot-diameter (7.6-meter-diameter) space-simulation chamber. The testing was designed to...

In this photo, two engineers from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Alliance Spacesystems are standing in a white room on either side of the Mars Science Laboratory rover's robotic arm. They are d...

View of the landscape to the north of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the afternoon of the first day after landing

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on the day of NASA's Curiosity rover landing on the Red Planet. The rover touched down on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning ...

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity at JPL, View from Front Left Corner

This is an artist's concept of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory aeroshell capsule as it enters the Martian atmosphere.

A ceremonial ribbon is cut for the opening of new "Destination: Mars" experience at the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex in Florida.

This graphic shows the flux of radiation detected by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory on the trip from Earth to Mars from December 2011 to July 2012.

This view from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows an example of discoloration closely linked to fractures in the Stimson formation sandstone on lower Mount Sharp. The pattern is evident along two p...

This view of a Martian rock called "Rocknest 3" combines four images taken by the right-eye camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument, which has a telephoto, 100-millimeter-focal-length lens.