Driving Over Sandy Ripples

Guided tour of the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's flight hardware at Kennedy Space Center.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity captured this view using its Navigation Camera (Navcam) after reaching the top of a rise called "Panorama Point" with a drive during the 388th Martian day, or sol, of th...

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

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

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 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 oblique view of Gale Crater shows the landing site and the mound of layered rocks that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will investigate. The landing site is in the smooth area in front of the m...

This map shows where NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has driven since landing at a site subsequently named "Bradbury Landing," and traveling to an overlook position near beside "Point Lake," in drives ...

This graph shows the ratio of concentrations of several elements in four different pairs of targets examined by Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instruments on NASA Mars rovers Curiosity an...

This nearly global mosaic of observations made by the Mars Color Imager on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 18, 2012, shows a dust storm in Mars' southern hemisphere.

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...

This scene combines images taken by the left-eye camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover during the midafternoon, local Mars solar time, of the mission's 526th...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 29th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 4, 2012).

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 diagram and the one at PIA16916 illustrate how the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover detects hydrogen in the ground beneath the rover.

These images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) show a before-and-after comparison of the area where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT).

The suspension system on NASA Mars rover Curiosity easily accommodates rolling over a ramp in this Sept. 10, 2010, test drive inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Labora...

This view captures Curiosity's current work area where the rover continues its campaign to study an active sand dune on Mars.

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will study chemistry of rocks, soil and air as the mission's rover, Curiosity, investigates Gale Crater on Mars.

Clouds drift across the sky above a Martian horizon in this accelerated sequence of enhanced images taken on July 17, 2017, by the Navcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.

This artists concept of MSL is a still from the MSL Mission Overview video. It shows MSL on the surface of Mars.

This March 4, 2015, image from the Navcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the position in which the rover held its arm for several days after a transient short circuit triggered onboard fault-...

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, known as Curiosity, arrives at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard an Air Force C-17 cargo plane.

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...

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity held its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera about 10.5 inches (27 centimeters) away from the top of a rock called "Bathurst Inlet" for a set of eight images combined i...