Scarecrow Rover Desert Tests

The "Shaler" outcrop is dramatically layered, as seen in this mosaic of telephoto images from the right Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

This series of images shows the Martian moon Phobos as it crossed in front of the Sun, as seen by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Tuesday, March 26, 2019 (Sol 2359).

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

The network of cracks in this Martian rock slab called "Old Soaker" may have formed from the drying of a mud layer more than 3 billion years ago. The view spans about 3 feet (90 centimeters) left-t...

Engineers use the Scarecrow rover to test driving on different types of terrain. In this image, the rover was taken out to the Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert, near Death Valley for tes...

NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover drilled this hole to collect sample material from a rock target called "Buckskin" on July 30, 2015, about a week prior to the third anniversary of the rover's landing on...

The two prominent mesas in this Aug. 18, 2016, view of Mars' "Murray Buttes" region from the Curiosity Mars rover's Mastcam are about 260 feet (about 80 meters) apart. The one on the right is about...

In this image, the Mars Science Laboratory Project Science Group, consisting of 11 men and 1 woman, are climbing up a dusty trail in New Mexico. Wearing casual hiking clothes and hats, they are cli...

About the size of a small toaster, the Radiation Assessment Detector will look skyward and use a stack of silicon detectors and a crystal of cesium iodide to measure galactic cosmic rays and solar ...

This graphic portrays the sequence of key events in August 2012 from the time the NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, with its rover Curiosity, enters the Martian atmosphere to a moment afte...

This is an artist's concept of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover parachute system.

Pictured here are a few of the women working on Mars with the Curiosity test rover model in the background. The image was taken in the "Mars Yard" where the ground test model of the Curiosity rover...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover spotted this dust devil with one of its Navigation Cameras around 11:35 a.m. local Mars time on Aug. 9, 2020 (the 2,847th Martian day, or sol, of the mission).

Spacecraft specialists test the descent stage and rover of the Mars Science Laboratory in this scene from the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

This screen grab shows a sample - not actual data - of the kinds of Mars weather reports we will be getting from NASA's Curiosity rover

Clicking on the floating spheres in Access Mars lets users see actual photos taking by NASA's Curiosity rover that allowed scientists to make new discoveries.

The first examinations of Martian soil by the Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, instrument on NASA's Mars Curiosity rover show no definitive detection of Martian organic molecules at this point.

This image of terrain inside Mars' Gale Crater and the inset of the calibration target for the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity illustrate how the calibration target aids resear...

On June 24, 2014, NASA's Curiosity rover completes her first Martian year (687 Earth days).

This view from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover was taken the day before the rover's final approach drive to "the Kimberley" waypoint, selected months ago as the location for the mission's next major in...

Clara Ma (in front) with Suparna Mukherjee, Julie Townsend, Jaime Waydo (in back row) are featured here in the laboratory where an engineering model of the next Mars rover, Curiosity, is being test...

Backdropped by the Atlantic Ocean, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rolls toward the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Ato...

This scene shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover at a location called "Windjana," where the rover found rocks containing manganese-oxide minerals, which require abundant water and strongly oxidizing co...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this iron-nickel meteorite nicknamed Cacao on Jan, 28, 2023. This meteorite is estimated to be about 1 foot (30 centimeters) across.

The nodule in the center of this March 10, 2016, image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows individual grains of sand and (on the right) laminations from the ...