Teaching Hand-Eye Coordination

A "scarecrow" rover at NASA's JPL drives over a sensor while testing a new driving algorithm. Engineers created the algorithm to reduce wheel wear on the Mars Curiosity rover.

A test operator in clean-room garb holds umbilical cables for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity during the rover's first drive test, on July 23, 2010.

This image shows the calibration target for the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover.

The reclosable dust cover on Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) was opened for the first time during the 33rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 8, 2012), enabling MA...

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

This 3-D view of the calibration target for the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) aboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was assembled from two images taken by that camera during the 34th Martian day, or s...

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 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.

Essay Winner's Signature on NASA's Curiosity Rover

This image shows the cruise structure (the 'ring' on top) and one part of the aeroshell (the backshell with the rover inside) flipped over and the bottom of the aeroshell (the black heat shield) be...

This stereo view from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows a rock called "Link," which bears rounded pebbles that provide evidence about vigorous flow of water in a stream on ancient Mars.

This image from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a sandstone slab on which the rover team has selected a target, "Windjana," for close-up examination.

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 2555 Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (October 14, 2019). 

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...

The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity was positioned about 4 inches (10 centimeters) from the surface of the "Point Lake" outcrop when it took this image of a ...

Meet some of the women team members and hear about the exciting and challenging jobs they do in science and engineering while working with Mars rover Curiosity.

Curiosity is at Point Lake on Mars and will snap pictures to send home. Find out more about the rover's 17 cameras, including why some shoot in color and others others take black-and-white images.

This image, taken with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, shows the transition between the "Murray Formation," in which layers are poorly expressed and difficult to tra...

Scarecrow is a full-scale version of Curiosity, but without the “brains.” Engineers use it to test drive on different types of terrain. In this image, the rover was taken out to the Dumont Dunes in...

This set of three images shows views three seconds apart as the larger of Mars' two moons, Phobos, passed directly in front of the sun as seen by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

Five decades of successful NASA missions to the Red Planet, 1965-2015.

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...

Two 2001 images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter show a dramatic change in the planet's appearance during a dust storm.

This view of the three left wheels of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity combines two images that were taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 34th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity'...

This detailed panorama from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a view toward two areas on lower Mount Sharp chosen for close-up inspection: "Mount Shields" and "Logan Pa...