Mars Rover Gets the Drill

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover recorded this view of various rock types at waypoint called "the Kimberley" shortly after arriving at the location on April 2, 2014. The site offers a diversity of rock ...

This computer-generated view depicts part of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight, with an area including Gale Crater beginning to catch morning light.

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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...

On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, one of three lightning masts, at left, protects the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket as it rolls from the safety of the Vertical I...

This image shows two engineers aiming the cannon that will fire the tightly packed parachute into the wind tunnel.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover targeted the laser of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument with remarkable accuracy for assessing the composition of the wall of a drilled hole and tailings tha...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has caught the first image of asteroids taken from the surface of Mars. The image includes two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta. This version includes Mars' moon Deimos in a c...

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).

This map shows the route that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drove inside Gale Crater from its landing in August 2013 through the 524th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Jan. 26, 2004).

As of June 2012, the target landing area for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission is the ellipse marked on this image of Gale Crater.

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.

Beyond a dark sand dune closer to the rover, a Martian dust devil passes in front of the horizon in this sequence of images from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. The rover's Navigation Camera made this...

Has Mars ever had the right ingredients for life? What are organic molecules, and what can they tell us about the history of Mars? Learn more in this 60-second video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Labo...

With NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft sealed inside its payload fairing, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket stands ready for launch at Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canavera...

This area at the base of Mount Sharp on Mars includes a pale outcrop, called "Pahrump Hills," that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover investigated from September 2014 to March 2015, and the "Artist's Driv...

This animation shows how the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of the arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was positioned for taking multiple images that were later combined into a self...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in December 2015, at examples of the Bagnold Dunes.

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This 360-degree panorama from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the rocky terrain surrounding it as of its 55th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Oct. 1, 2012).

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory travels near a canyon on Mars in this artist's concept. The mission is under development for launch in 2009 and a precision landing on Mars in 2010.

This video steps viewers through a portion of the choreography needed to land NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars. It starts with a computer simulation from NASA's Eyes on the Solar System program and ...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in December 2015, at examples of the Bagnold Dunes.

This image from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows wheel tracks printed by the rover as it drove on the sandy floor of a lowland called "Hidden Valley" on the route toward M...

Engineers just installed six new wheels on the Curiosity rover, and rotated all six wheels at once on July 9, 2010.