Mars Science Laboratory Stacked Spacecraft

The cruise stage will have support ribs, solar arrays, a radiator, and an adapter for connecting the vehicle to the rockets that will launch it from Earth.

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.

An animated set of three images from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the rover's drill in action on Feb. 8, 2013, or Sol 182, Curiosity's 182nd Martian day of operations.

The 16 frames in this time-lapse movie show how repeated laser shots from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity cause a pit to form at the target point in Mar...

The feature that appears bright blue at the center of this scene is NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp, viewed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Curiosity is ...

NASA's Curiosity rover dusts off a rock on Mars for the first time.

A narrated play-by-play of Curiosity's entry, descent, and landing on Mars!

This image of a calibration target illuminated by ultraviolet LEDs (light emitting diodes) is part of the first set of nighttime images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end ...

This diagram depicts a vertical cross section through geological layers deposited by rivers, deltas and lakes. Deposits from a series of successive deltas build out increasingly high in elevation a...

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a network of two-tone mineral veins at an area called "Garden City" on lower Mount Sharp.

Clara Ma, winner of the contest to name NASA's Curiosity rover, in 2009 with an engineering model of the rover (left) and as a graduate student in 2019 (right)

The Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity detects even very small amounts of water in the ground beneath the rover, primarily water bound into the crystal struc...

Left and right eyes of the Navigation Camera (Navcam) in NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took the dozens of images combined into this stereo scene of the rover and its surroundings. The component image...

Mercury passed in front of the sun on June 3, 2014, as viewed from Mars. The Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover recorded the event. (No audio)

This image of a U.S. penny on a calibration target was taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) aboard NASA's Curiosity rover in Gale Crater on Mars. At 14 micrometers per pixel, this is the high...

This cut-out from a color panorama image taken by NASA's Curiosity rover shows the effects of the descent stage's rocket engines blasting the ground.

The descent stage of NASA's Mars Sciecnce Laboratory spacecraft is being lifted during assembly of the spacecraft in this photograph taken inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA Ke...

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...

Access Mars lets users visit several sites from the past five years of discoveries made by NASA's Curiosity rover.

This image shows the ratio of the argon isotope argon-36 to the heavier argon isotope argon-38, in various measurements.

This series of images reconstructs the geology of the region around Mars' Mount Sharp, where NASA's Curiosity Mars rover landed and is now driving. The images, taken on Earth, have been altered for...

This pair of images shows a "bite mark" where NASA's Curiosity rover scooped up some Martian soil (left), and the scoop carrying soil.

This scene combines seven images from the telephoto-lens camera on the right side of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

In this image from NASA's Curiosity rover, a rock outcrop called Link pops out from a Martian surface that is elsewhere blanketed by reddish-brown dust. The fractured Link outcrop has blocks of exp...

This image from July 2008 shows the aeroshell for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory while it was being worked on by spacecraft technicians at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company near Denver.