Southern Meridiani

Engineers put the rover through thousands of hours of testing. They did drop tests; pull tests; drive tests; load tests, and many other tests to get Curiosity ready for launch.

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It takes a whole team to operate Curiosity's arm. Pictured here are just a few of the team members who put their "muscle" to work every day to help operate Curiosity's arm on Mars.

This mosaic image with a close-up inset, taken prior to the test, shows the rock chosen as the first target for NASA's Curiosity rover to zap with its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument.

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 ...

This pair of images from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the rock target "Cumberland" before and after Curiosity drilled into it to collect a sample for analy...

This graphic illustrates how dimensions of clay minerals' crystal structure are affected by which ions are present in the mineral. The CheMin instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover identified di...

Discolored Fracture Zones in Martian Sandstone

This small ridge, about 3 feet long, appears to resist wind erosion more than the flatter plates around it. Such differences are among the traits NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is examining at selecte...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from where it landed in 2012 to its location in early March 2016, approaching 'Naukluft Plateau.' As the rover continues up Mount Shar...

Three Generations of NASA Mars Rovers

This artist's scoreboard displays a fictional game between Mars and Earth, with Mars in the lead. It refers to the success rate of sending missions to Mars, both as orbiters and landers.

Engineers test the rover’s driving skills on soft sand ripples in this latest desert-driving trip on June 5, 2014, in the Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert, near Death Valley.

This image of the northwestern portion of Mars' Gale Crater and terrain north of it, from the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, provides a locator map for some features visible in an Oc...

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.

A Martian target rock called "Nova," shown here, displayed an increasing concentration of aluminum as a series of laser shots from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover penetrated through dust on the rock's ...

This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the first sample-collection hole drilled in Mount Sharp, the layered mountain that is the science desti...

This 3D, or stereo anaglyph, view shows the parachute and back shell that helped guide NASA's Curiosity to the surface of Mars.

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, right, and Erisa Hines of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, try out the Microsoft Hololens mixed reality headset during a preview of "Destin...

This 360-degree image shows a complete, full-resolution panorama around NASA's Curiosity rover, taken by the Navigation cameras.

This image show the MSL BUD team

This mosaic from the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity rover shows the view looking toward the "Glenelg" area, where three different terrain types come together.

Spacecraft specialists test the descent stage and rover of the Mars Science Laboratory in this scene from the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Two spacecraft engineers stand with a group of vehicles providing a comparison of three generations of Mars rovers developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The setting is JPL...

This Jan. 13, 2015, view from the Mars Hand Lens Imager on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows outcomes of a mini-drill test to assess whether the "Mojave" rock is appropriate for full-depth drilling...