Desolate Landscape

Goal1: Determine whether life ever arose on Mars

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 panorama combining images taken on Feb. 10, 2014, by the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looks back to where the rover crossed a dune at "Dingo Gap" four days earlier...

This map of Mars shows 4 possible landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory. Aslo shown are the landing sites for past missions; Phoenix, Viking 1, Viking 2 Pathfinder, Opportunity and Spirit.

This mosaic of images from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) shows geological members of the Yellowknife Bay formation, and the sites where Curiosity drilled into the lowest-lying member, called Sh...

The area in and near the landing site selected for landing of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory offers a diversity of possible targets for examination by the mission's rover, Curiosity.

Employees at Space Launch Complex 41 of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., keep watch as the payload fairing containing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is lifted up the side of the V...

This is an artist's concept of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover parachute system.

Curiosity will have to survive the extreme temperatures of Mars. Is the rover ready? Engineers put it through thermal tests to find out.

This close-up image shows the first target NASA's Curiosity rover aims to zap with its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument.

This stereo mosaic of images from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the terrain to the west from the rover's position on the 528th Martian day, or sol, of the miss...

This engineering drawing shows the five devices that make up the turret at the end of the arm on NASA's Curiosity rover.

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).

An artist's concept of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (left) serves to compare it with Spirit, one of NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers.

This is a still from an interactive web feature that guides you through the entry, descent and landing of NASA's Curiosity rover.

NASA readies for the experimental flight of a test vehicle designed for landing larger payloads on Mars.

This image shows where NASA's Curiosity rover aimed two different instruments to study a pyramid-shaped rock known as "Jake Matijevic."

The "Shaler" outcrop is dramatically layered, as seen in this mosaic of telephoto images from the right Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

​NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered ancient organic molecules on Mars, embedded within sedimentary rocks that are billions of years old.

This image shows the cells that hold the soil samples that are vibrated by the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover recorded this view of various rock types at waypoint called "the Kimberley" shortly after arriving at the location on April 2, 2014. The site offers a diversity of rock ...

Gray cuttings from Curiosity's drilling into a target called "Mojave 2" are visible surrounding the sample-collection hole in this Jan. 31, 2015, image from the rover's MAHLI camera. This site in t...

Employees gathered one level above monitor the progress of the protective mesh container known as the "gorilla cage," holding the multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) for NAS...

On Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the 197-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is backdropped by a bright blue sky as the vehicle rolls from the Vertical Integration Facili...

There are no gas stations or power outlets in space. That's why NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars--and some other NASA spacecraft that explore the solar system--use something called "radioisotope powe...