What's New

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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During a long drive on Labor Day, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity reached the estimated halfway point of its journey from Victoria Crater to Endeavour Crater.
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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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Thrust from a Titan 3/Centaur rocket launched NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft on a 505-million-mile journey to Mars on Aug. 20, 1975. Viking 2 followed three weeks later.
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The most powerful telescopic camera ever to orbit Mars reveals a fresh crater, an ice mound, climate-recording layers and many other views in 314 newly released observations.
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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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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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Almost 40 years ago, NASA's Mariner 9 spacecraft relayed to Earth the first video images of Mars' northern polar ice cap, revealing a strange pattern of spiral swirls that has puzzled scientists ever since. Using new data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), researchers have finally uncovered the secrets of the troughs that snake through the ice cap like a spiraled maze.
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When some Mars explorers learned of plans for a worldwide photography event combining shots taken from thousands of different locations on May 2, 2010, they figured, "Why just one world?"
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This movie shows the wheel tracks left by the Opportunity rover as it climbed uphill out of Victoria crater.
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NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has captured a new view of the rim of Endeavour crater, the rover's destination in a multi-year traverse along the sandy Martian landscape. A portion of the rim about 13 kilometers (8 miles) away appears on the horizon at the left edge of the image.
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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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Mars rover Spirit has tenaciously swept, scraped, and squeezed secrets from the forbidding surface of Mars for 6 years. If Spirit can make it through to spring, the feisty robot will prove it's still in the game--by solving the mysteries of the Martian core.
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While the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity do not carry a microphone, these audio excerpts represent the journeys the Mars rovers have made while driving across the plains, mountains and craters of Mars during the last six years.
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Design a Sport for Mars and Win a Trip to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The Kids Science Challenge, with support from NASA's Imagine Mars Project, is asking students in grades 3 through 6 to consider what sports might be played by members of the first martian community.
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A dramatic 3D Mars view based on terrain modeling from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter data shows "highs and lows" of Mojave Crater.
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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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Name: Spirit, Mars Exploration Rover A
Address: "Troy," 14.6 degrees South, 175.5 degrees East, Gusev Crater, Mars, 4th Rock from the Sun
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The rover team has begun driving Spirit backward as next technique for attempting to extricate the rover from the sand trap where it is embedded.
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The list of remaining maneuvers being considered for extricating Spirit is becoming shorter.
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