On August 5, after a journey lasting more than 8 months, a carlike rover carefully settled down onto the surface of Mars. The vehicle is basically a science lab. Its mission: to search for evidence that the Red Planet might once have hosted life — even if the organisms were only one-celled microbes.
The first stage of this mission — the landing — is “an amazing achievement,” observes Charles Bolden. He runs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, which built and delivered the vehicle to Mars.
NASA named the robotic cruiser Curiosity. The six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle weighs 900 kilograms (about 1 U.S. ton). Roughly 2.8 meters (9 feet) long, it carries 10 research instruments. Seventeen separate cameras (including one on
The first stage of this mission — the landing — is “an amazing achievement,” observes Charles Bolden. He runs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, which built and delivered the vehicle to Mars.
NASA named the robotic cruiser Curiosity. The six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle weighs 900 kilograms (about 1 U.S. ton). Roughly 2.8 meters (9 feet) long, it carries 10 research instruments. Seventeen separate cameras (including one on