Scarecrow Rover Wheel Closeup

Engineers put the rover through spin tests to ensure smooth sailing in space.

NASA's Curiosity rover took this selfie on Oct. 11, 2019, the 2,553rd Martian day, or sol, of its mission. The rover drilled twice in this location, which is nicknamed "Glen Etive."

This oblique view of the mound in Gale Crater shows several different rock types of interest to the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

This Dec. 2, 2016, view from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on the mast of NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows rocky ground within view while the rover was working at an intended drilling site cal...

NASA's Curiosity rover delivers its first soil sample to its chemistry and mineralogy instrument.

How a Martian mountain came to be: the story behind Curiosity's current location on Mars.

This full-resolution image from NASA's Curiosity shows the turret of tools at the end of the rover's extended robotic arm on Aug. 20, 2012. The Navigation Camera captured this view.

This mosaic of images from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) shows geological members of the Yellowknife Bay formation, and the sites where Curiosity drilled into the lowest-lying member, called Sh...

"Vera Rubin Ridge," a favored destination for NASA's Curiosity Mars rover even before the rover landed in 2012, rises near the rover nearly five years later in this panorama from Curiosity's Mast C...

View the video 'Mars Rover Gets the Drill'

NASA’s InSight has been busy. After landing on the Red Planet, the mission sent home pictures and sound, then placed its first instrument on the planet's surface. Plus, find out what the Curiosity ...

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to take the images combined into this mosaic of the drill area, called "John Klein."

This image shows the calibration target for the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover.

Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada gives a descriptive tour of the Mars rover's view in Gale Crater. The white-balanced scene looks back over the journey so far.

This photo shows 70 members of the Mars Science Laboratory team in Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Spacecraft Assembly Facility after they have prepared the spacecraft to go to a different area for the...

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.

Water, whether liquid or frozen, absorbs neutrons more than other substances. The Detector of Albedo Neutrons on the Mars Science Laboratory rover will use this characteristic to search for subsurf...

Curiosity location for Sol 313

A "scarecrow" rover at NASA's JPL drives over a sensor while testing a new driving algorithm. Engineers created the algorithm to reduce wheel wear on the Mars Curiosity rover.

This view from Curiosity shows a dramatic hillside outcrop with sandstone layers that scientists refer to as "cross-bedding."

A test operator in clean-room garb holds umbilical cables for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity during the rover's first drive test, on July 23, 2010.

As the Curiosity rover hurdles toward Mars on the last leg of its journey, the Mars Science Laboratory Mission Operations Team assemble in Mission Control at the Space Flight Operations Facility at...

The Mars Science Laboratory mission's "powered descent vehicle" is the integrated combination of the spacecraft's descent stage and the rover Curiosity. It is shown inside the Payload Hazardous Ser...

Gray cuttings from Curiosity's drilling into a target called "Mojave 2" are visible surrounding the sample-collection hole in this Jan. 31, 2015, image from the rover's MAHLI camera. This site in t...

Send Your Name to Mars microchip location, taken prior to the launch of NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover. More than 1.2 million names were submitted on our web site over a one year period! Some 20,000 ...