Mars Curiosity
Curiosity is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the Gale crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral on 26 November 2011, at 15:02:00 UTC and landed on Aeolis Palus inside Gale crater on Mars on 6 August 2012, 05:17:57 UTC. The Bradbury Landing site was less than 2.4 km from the center of the rover's touchdown target after a 560 million km journey. Mission goals include an investigation of the Martian climate and geology, assessment of whether the selected field site inside Gale has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life, and planetary habitability studies in preparation for human exploration. In December 2012, Curiosity's two-year mission was extended indefinitely, and on 5 August 2017, NASA celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Curiosity rover landing. On 6 August 2022, a detailed overview of accomplishments by the Curiosity rover for the last ten years was reported.
