
Curiosity is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore Mars as part of NASA’s
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission.
The MSL mission founded in 1993 was formed to help determine whether Mars
could ever have supported life, as well as determining the role of water, and to
study the climate and geology of Mars.
The work of MSL is to perhaps best described as helping to set the stage for the
human exploration of Mars.
The rover, which is about the size of a MINI Cooper, landed on Mars on August 6,
2012 equipped with 17 cameras and a robotic arm containing a suite of specialized
laboratory-like tools and instruments.
Curiosity’s scientic tools found chemical and mineral evidence of past habitable
environments on Mars. Today, it continues to explore Mars beaming down captivat-
ing images and further evidence of the potential for a human mission to take place
in the near future.