Wednesday, April 7, 2010 as of 11:14 AM ET
The exploration of Mars has taken place over hundreds of years, beginning in earnest with the invention and development of the telescope in the 1600s.
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NASA's next Mars rover, the car-size Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, is almost ready to fly to the Red Planet.
Beginning tomorrow (Aug. 13), technicians at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida will begin folding up the six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover to pack it inside its heat shield.Targeted to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral on the day after Thanksgiving (Nov. 25), Curiosity was shown off to the media on Friday inside the clean room where it has been undergoing final tests and preparations for its journey to Mars. [ Photos: NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity ]The rover, which at 10 feet (3 meters) long has been likened to the size of a Mini Cooper, was in its fully-deployed posture. The next time it will be in the same configuration will be after it is deposited on the surface of Mars in August 2012."We're going to start buttoning up the hatches here," said Torsten Zorn, a robotics engineer with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in...Next stop, Gale Crater.NASA has chosen the landing spot for the car-sized Mars Science Laboratory, the successor to the famously successful Spirit and Opportunity ro...
When there's no answer, again and again, at some point you have to stop calling. NASA announced Tuesday (May 24) that it will cease its daily attempts to contact Spi...
NASA's next-generation rover to the surface of Mars will be quite the behemoth -- with a price tag to match.Nine months before its scheduled launch, the space agency...
The roving days are over for NASA's Mars rover Spirit after more than six years rolling across the Martian surface, the space agency announced Tuesday.NASA engineers...
NASA's new mission to Mars
LOS ANGELES -- The prospect of ever hearing from the stuck Mars rover Spirit is fading after it failed to respond to repeated calls from Earth.Despite the dismal out...
LOS ANGELES — The Mars rover Spirit will soon try to drive itself out of a sand trap where it has been stuck for the past six months.NASA is set to outline plans to ...
NASA's bogged-down Mars rover Spirit hit another snag in its attempt to free itself from a sand trap when one of its wheels stalled as it tried to move forward, NASA...
Will it find additional evidence of water?
In May 2011, SPACE.com reporter Mike Wall visited NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., as scientists and engineers were wrapping up work on Curiosit...
Sixty years ago Saturday morning, a rocket stood ready to launch from the east coast of Florida, destined to make history – not so much for where it was going, but f...
Former NASA chief Sean O'Keefe and his son have both reportedly survived the crash of the private plane that killed Alaskan ex-senator Ted Stevens. The group was on ...
NASA's newest Mars rover won't touch down on the Red Planet until August, but scientists are already testing out the vehicle's desert driving skills.Last week, resea...
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity has finally arrived at the giant crater Endeavour, after nearly three years of intrepid driving across the surface of the Red Planet.Th...
The effort to free NASA's Spirit rover, currently mired in sand on Mars, will begin in earnest today, when engineers team send the first escape commands to the stuck...
After nearly a decade of planning, several cost overruns and a two-year delay, NASA is finally set to launch its next Mars rover this week.The car-size Curiosity rov...
Despite NASA's attempts at anthropomorphism, the Mars rovers do not talk, so Spirit was unable to utter any last words. But we did get to share its final view. Behol...
The Mars rover Opportunity is on the go again.After spending nearly five months conducting experiments in one spot, the NASA rover moved for the first time this week...
NASA's Mars rover Spirit is suffering a new bout of amnesia, one that comes after months of being stuck in deep Martian sand.The 6-year-old rover's latest memory lap...
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