What's New

NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, will shoot a laser at rocks and patches of soil with enough power to generate a flash revealing each target's atomic ingredients.
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More than one million people have watched assembly and testing of NASA's next Mars rover via a live webcam since it went online in October.
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As it explores a region of Mars, NASA's rover Curiosity will monitor temperatures, winds, humidity and other environmental variables using tools supplied by Spain.
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A camera installed this month on the robotic arm of NASA's next Mars rover will do close-up inspections for clues to Martian environments, but it can look far away, too.
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One of the experiments on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will measure the natural radiation environment to aid plans for future human missions.
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A newly installed webcam is giving the public an opportunity to watch technicians assemble and test the next NASA Mars rover, one of the most technologically challenging interplanetary missions ever designed.
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A suite of instruments to analyze samples of Martian rocks and soil for chemistry relevant to life is being readied in Maryland for NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity.
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In preparation for NASA's next rover landing on the Red Planet, one Mars year away, an instrument studying the Martian atmosphere from orbit has begun a campaign.
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A tool newly delivered from Los Alamos National Laboratory for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity will zap Martian rocks with a laser to learn the rocks' makeup.
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Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory put Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover, through an obstacle course to test its mobility system.
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Tests underway in a JPL clean room will refine the precision of movements by a robotic arm that can reach more than 7 feet in front of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.
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Mars Science Laboratory, aka Curiosity, is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term program of robotic exploration of the Red Planet. The mission is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in late 2011, and arrive at an intriguing region of Mars in August 2012.
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The rover for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, Curiosity, exercised its mobility system by driving over raised ramps in recent testing at JPL.
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Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover that will be on Mars two years from now, has been flexing the robotic arm that spacecraft workers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory attached to the rover body in August 2010.
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Like proud parents savoring their baby’s very first steps, mission team members gathered in a gallery above a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to watch the Mars Curiosity rover roll for the first time.
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Talk about a growth-spurt. In one week, Curiosity grew by approximately 1 meter (3.5 feet) when spacecraft technicians and engineers attached the rover’s neck and head (called the Remote Sensing Mast) to its body.
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A downward-pointing camera on the front-left side of NASA's Curiosity rover will give adventure fans worldwide an unprecedented sense of riding a spacecraft to a landing on Mars.
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The wheels that will touch down on Mars in 2012 are several rotations closer to spinning on the rocky trails of Mars.
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Six of them! And these wheels aren’t meant for the concrete roadways, bustling freeways, or sleepy highways - they’re destined for off-roading on Mars.
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NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, is sitting pretty on a set of spiffy new wheels that would be the envy of any car show on Earth.

The wheels and a suspension system were added this week by spacecraft technicians and engineers. These new and important touches are a key step in assembling and testing the flight system in advance of a planned 2011 launch.
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NASA's Curiosity rover, coming together for a late 2011 launch to Mars, has a newly installed component: a key onboard X-ray instrument for helping the mission achieve its goals.
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Engineers have finished a key step in testing the radar system for NASA's next mission to Mars, using helicopter flights at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.
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For optimal communications during arrival at Mars, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, will launch after Thanksgiving 2011 and land on Mars in August 2012.
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This spring, engineers are testing a radar system that will serve during the next landing on Mars.
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JPL has received the two cameras for the Mast Camera instrument, the science-imaging workhorse of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, to be launched next year.
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Engineers just completed the first end-to-end test for Curiosity's robotic arm and sampling tools, "flexing" the arm to see if it plays "nice" with the rest of the system.
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A new Mars mission will be checking whether a carefully chosen area of Mars has ever had an environment favorable for the development of life and preservation of evidence about life.
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