Scarecrow Rover Desert Tests

This image is from a test series used to characterize the 100-millimeter Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity rover. It was taken on Aug. 23, 2012, and looks south-southwest from the rover's landing site.

This map shows the route on lower Mount Sharp that NASA's Curiosity followed between April 19, 2015, and Nov. 5, 2015. During this period the mission investigated silica-rich rock targets includin...

These images from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover indicate similarly dark material, but with very different chemistries, in mineral veins at "Garden City."

This image graphs four gases released ("evolved") when powdered rock from the target rock "Cumberland" was heated inside the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on NASA's Curiosity Mars ...

This area at the base of Mount Sharp on Mars includes a pale outcrop, called "Pahrump Hills," that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover investigated from September 2014 to March 2015, and the "Artist's Driv...

Researchers prepare for a test of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument that will fly on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. The instrument uses a pulsed laser beam to vaporize a pinhea...

This video (part 3 of a 4 part series) shows engineers testing a new parachute in the largest wind tunnel on Earth for the Curiosity rover prior to its landing on August 2012.

This image shows a dry streambed on an alluvial fan in the Atacama Desert, Chile, revealing the typical patchy, heterogeneous mixture of grain sizes deposited together.

This image shows two engineers aiming the cannon that will fire the tightly packed parachute into the wind tunnel.

The Mars Descent Imager for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory took this image in October 2008.

The Curiosity Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) captured the rover's descent to the surface of the Red Planet. The instrument shot 4 fps video from heatshield separation to the ground. (No audio)

This 360-degree vista was acquired on Aug. 5, 2016, by the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover as the rover neared features called "Murray Buttes" on lower Mount Sharp. The dark, flat-topped mes...

Data graphed here from the Chemistry and Camera (CheMin) instrument on NASA's Mars Curiosity rover show a difference between clay minerals in powder drilled from mudstone outcrops at two locations ...

NASA's Mars rovers keep getting bigger. This photo provides a comparison of the wheel sizes for three generations of them.

This map of Mars shows all of the more than 60 landing sites proposed for the Mars Science Laboratory (red dots) and the four final candidate sites (blue dots).

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 ...

The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover fired its laser 50 times at its onboard graphite target during the 27th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars...

New Year's Eve revelers watching giant screens in New York's Times Square saw a special Happy New Year greeting from Mars, currently 206 million miles away. (No audio)

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians process the heat shield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).

This illustration shows the locations and interactions of volatiles on Mars. Volatiles are molecules that readily evaporate, converting to their gaseous form, such as water and carbon dioxide.

Engineers put the rover through spin tests to ensure smooth sailing in space.

Pictured here are Jennifer Trosper, MSL Deputy Project Manager and Grace Tan-Wang, Strategic Uplink Lead. The image was taken in the "Mars Yard" where the ground test model of the Curiosity rover ...

A wheel track left by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover exposes underlying material in a shallow sand sheet in this Dec. 2, 2015, view from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam). The site is close to a large...

A wheel track cuts through a windblown ripple of dusty sand in this Nov. 7, 2014, image from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity rover. The view spans about four feet across. This experiment was planne...

This movie clip shows Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars, passing overhead, as observed by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity in a series of images centered straight overhead starting shortly aft...