Scarecrow Rover Desert Tests

Gale Crater

This full-resolution self-portrait shows the deck of NASA's Curiosity rover from the rover's Navigation camera.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity captured this stereo view using its Navigation Camera (Navcam) after a 17-foot (5.3 meter) drive on 477th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (Dec. 8, 2013)...

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Navigation Camera (Navcam) to capture this view on April 11, 2015, during the 952nd Martian day, or sol of the rover's work on Mars. The image appears three-dim...

This view combines several frames taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, looking into a valley to the west from the eastern side of a dune at the eastern end of the valley.

Mars Science Laboratory team member Jessica Samuels gives a progress report on Curiosity's first days on Mars.

NASA's Curiosity rover and its powered descent vehicle pose for photographs prior to being integrated for launch at JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility.

From a position in the shallow "Yellowknife Bay" depression, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used its right Mast Camera (Mastcam) to take the telephoto images combined into this panorama of geological ...

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...

Engineers work on Opportunity (in its cruise configuration) in a cleanroom at Kennedy Space Center. A very important part of planetary protection is keeping contaminants from humans from riding abo...

This image from NASA's Mars Curiosity rover shows the "Amargosa Valley," on the slopes leading up to Mount Sharp on Mars.

This Sept. 16, 2017, image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows effects of using the rover's wire-bristled Dust Removal Tool on a rock target called "C...

Some of the women working on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project, which built and operates the Curiosity Mars rover, gathered for this photo in the Mars Yard used for rover testing at NASA's Jet...

This view of a Martian rock called "Rocknest 3" combines four images taken by the right-eye camera of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument, which has a telephoto, 100-millimeter-focal-length lens.

This view of Curiosity's left-front and left-center wheels and of marks made by wheels on the ground in the "Yellowknife Bay" area comes from one of six cameras used on Mars for the first time more...

On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is in place at Space Launch Complex 41 after rolling out from the nearby Vertical Integration...

This photograph of the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, was taken during mobility testing on June 3, 2011. The location is inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propul...

The stick-shaped features on this Martian rock are about the size of grains of rice. This view from the MAHLI camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover covers an area about 2 inches across, on a target...

This is an artist's concept of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft during its cruise phase between launch and final approach to Mars.

A viewpoint on "Vera Rubin Ridge" provided NASA's Curiosity Mars rover this detailed look back over the area where it began its mission inside Gale Crater, plus more-distant features 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...

Pictured here is Clara Ma (in front row on the right) and her sister Remmy Ma with engineers Suparna Mukherjee, Jaime Waydo and then Julie Towsend (back row).

The two donut-shaped tracks make an infinity symbol, and mark the first two drives of NASA's Curiosity rover.

The Laser-Induced Remote Sensing for Chemistry and Micro-Imaging instrument will identify atomic elements in martian rocks. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/J.-L. Lacour, CEA

Curiosity gets new software and new capabilities for the long trek to Mt. Sharp.