Mars Science Laboratory Stacked Spacecraft

This 160-degree, stereo view from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is centered southward toward a planned science waypoint at "the Kimberley," with an outcrop of eroded sandstone in the foreground. The ...

This video shows an engineering test for NASA's Curiosity rover, which took place during Assembly, Test and Launch Operations (ATLO), a project phase that occurs when all components are integrated,...

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...

This sequence of images shows the heat shield from NASA's Mars Science Laboratory hitting the ground on Mars and raising a cloud of dust. The images were taken by the Mars Descent Imager on the mis...

This color panorama shows a 360-degree view of the landing site of NASA's Curiosity rover, including the highest part of Mount Sharp visible to the rover. That part of Mount Sharp is approximately ...

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA's Mars Science Lab (MSL) rover Curiosity rolls out to its Space Launch Complex-41 launch pad arriving at 8:40 a.m. EST today.

Self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover uses thumbnail versions of MAHLI component images to give an idea of what a sharper version will look like when the full-frame images are assembled.

This evenly layered rock photographed by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover on Aug. 7, 2014, shows a pattern typical of a lake-floor sedimentary deposit not far from where flo...

This color image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows an area excavated by the blast of the Mars Science Laboratory’s descent stage rocket engines

Curiosity is the biggest robot explorer ever to rove Mars. How do you power something like that?

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.

This video, taken by one of the Navigation Cameras, or Navcams, on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, shows the rover's robotic arm as it rotates to take a selfie. A camera at the end of the arm captured...

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover (blue line) and locations where the rover's ChemCam instrument detected the element boron (dots, colored by abundance of boron accordi...

The Space Flight Operations Center, a National Historic Landmark, has been operational and staffed every day since 1964. Here engineers send and receive commands for any spacecraft in, and beyond,...

This patch of Martian bedrock, about 2 feet (70 centimeters) across, is finely layered rock with some pea-size inclusions. It lies near the lowest point of the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop, which forms ...

The top of the rover's mast faces away in this May 11, 2016, self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which shows the vehicle at the "Okoruso" drilling site on lower Mount Sharp. The scene is ...

There's no wall these women can't climb. Pictured here are Jennifer Trosper (front), Micki Hurtado (center), and Nagin Cox (back).

This Dec. 18, 2015, view of the downwind face of "Namib Dune" on Mars covers 360 degrees, including a portion of Mount Sharp on the horizon. The component images were taken by the Mast Camera on NA...

This computer-generated view based on multiple orbital observations shows Mars' Gale crater as if seen from an aircraft north of the crater.

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 of grains from a sand dune near Christmas Lake, Ore., was taken by a testing twin of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory.

This image maps the traverse of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity from "Bradbury Landing" to "Yellowknife Bay," with an inset documenting a change in the ground's thermal properties with arrival at a dif...

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to take the images combined into this mosaic of the drill area, called "John Klein."

This view from the Curiosity Mars rover's Mastcam shows a dark mound, called "Ireson Hill," which rises about 16 feet above redder layered outcrop material on lower Mount Sharp, Mars, near a locati...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took this 360-degree panorama while atop “Mont Mercou,” a rock formation that offered a view into Gale Crater below.