Mars Science Laboratory Stacked Spacecraft

This image is from a test series used to characterize the 100-millimeter Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity rover. It was taken on Aug. 23, 2012, and looks south-southwest from the rover's landing site.

This early 2017 look ahead from the Mastcam of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover includes four geological layers to be examined by the mission, and higher reaches of Mount Sharp beyond the planned study ...

This May 5, 2014, image from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows two holes at top center drilled into a sandstone target called "Windjana." The farther hole was created by th...

Data graphed here are examples from the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) laboratory's detection of Martian organics in a sample of powder that the drill on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover collected from a...

The finished heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, with a diameter of 4.5 meters (14 feet, 9 inches), is the largest ever built for descending through the atmosphere of any planet. This i...

This is an artist concept of the Atlas V541 launch vehicle that will carry NASA's Curiosity rover on its way to Mars.

With NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft sealed inside its payload fairing, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket rides smoke and flames as it rises from the launch pad at Space Lau...

Examination of a calcium sulfate vein called "Diyogha" by the ChemCam instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover found boron, sodium and chlorine. An image from the rover's Mastcam, at left, provide...

This view combines several frames taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, looking into a valley to the west from the eastern side of a dune at the eastern end of the valley.

This graph presents information from the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's onboard analysis of rock powder drilled from the "Buckskin" and "Greenhorn" target locations on lower Mount Sharp.

This image from Curiosity's Mastcam shows inclined beds of sandstone interpreted as the deposits of small deltas fed by rivers flowing down from the Gale Crater rim and building out into a lake whe...

This May 25, 2015, view from the Curiosity rover's Mastcam shows a site where two different types of bedrock meet near "Marias Pass" on Mount Sharp. Pale mudstone in the foreground is like bedrock ...

An area inside Holden crater was considered as a landing site for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has clocked more than a decade of service at the Red Planet and has yielded scientific discoveries and magnificent views of a distant world. These images taken by...

The "Bonanza King" rock on Mars, pictured here, was tapped by the drill belonging to NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

NASA’s Curiosity captured this 360-degree panorama while parked below Gediz Vallis Ridge (seen at right), a formation that preserves a record of one of the last wet periods seen on this part of Mar...

The left Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took this image of Curiosity's sample-processing and delivery tool just after the tool delivered a portion of powdered rock into the ro...

This oblique view of Gale crater shows the landing site and the mound of layered rocks that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will investigate.

At the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, workers uncover half of the Atlas V payload fairing for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, encased ...

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, left, and Erisa Hines of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, speak to members of the news media during a preview of the new "Destination: Mars...

This image shows a closeup view of the two pairs of camera lenses on a shelf. The left-hand pair are larger than the right-hand pair, go to the hazard avoidance camera, and have a larger, fish-eye ...

NASA’s Curiosity rover recently made its most challenging climb on Mars. Curiosity faced a steep, slippery slope on its journey up Mount Sharp, so rover drivers had to come up with a creative detou...

The rover took a 360-degree panorama of the area depicting its last drill hole on the ridge (at a location called "Rock Hall").

The graph at right presents information from the NASA Curiosity Mars rover's onboard analysis of rock powder drilled from the "Buckskin" target location, shown at left.

Where were you when Curiosity landed?