The adventures of NASA's Curiosity and Mars 2020 rovers

The Mars Science Laboratory mission is a Mars rover called Curiosity, part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort to explore the Red Planet with robots. The curiosity aims to assess whether Mars ever had an environment capable of supporting small life forms called microbes. In other words, its mission is to determine Mars' habitability. To find out, the rover is carrying the largest and most advanced suite of scientific research instruments ever sent to the surface of Mars. The station will analyze samples dug out of the soil and drilled out of the rock. The climatic and geological records of the planets are essentially records "written in rock and soil", including their formation, structure and chemical composition. The rover's vehicle-borne laboratory will study rocks, soil and local geology to examine the life building blocks of Martian chemicals (in the form of carbon, for example) and will assess the Martian environment in the past. Curiosity won't be NASA's only Mars rover active next summer. Mars 2020 will travel to the Red Planet. Although the newest rovers borrow from Curiosity's design, they're not twins: Built and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., each has a role to play in exploring Mars and searching for ancient life. It's the close look that makes siblings stand out. NASA's Mars 2020 rover looks almost identical to Curiosity, but with many differences. In addition to studying the weather, Mars 2020 will also carry samples of spacesuits that will allow scientists to study how they degrade. An oxygen generator will test technology for astronauts to make their own rocket fuel from the Martian atmosphere. An underground radar fond of a lunar rover may one day be used to find buried water ice. For the first time in the history of space exploration, scientists have measured seasonal variations in the gas filling the air directly above the surface of gale crater on Mars. As a result, they noticed something puzzling: Oxygen, the gas used by many living things on Earth to breathe, behaves in a way that scientists have so far been unable to explain through any known chemical process. NASA's Curiosity rover has come a long way since touching Mars seven years ago. It traveled a total of 13 miles (21 kilometers) and climbed to its current position of 1,207 feet (368 meters). Along the way, curiosity discovered that Mars had the conditions to support microbial life in ancient times. The mineral-rich salt rocks found by Curiosity are interpreted as evidence of shallow, saltwater ponds that overflowed and dried. As The Martian environment transitioned from wet soil to today's frozen deserts, these deposits became watermarks created by climate fluctuations. Scientists want to know how long this transition takes and exactly when it happens. The latest clue could be a sign of discovery, as curiosity heads towards an area called a "sulphate device" that is expected to form in drier environments. It contrasts sharply with the descent, where curiosity finds evidence of persistent freshwater lakes. The clay lighthouse seen from space brought the rover here, but the region clearly has other stories to tell. Now, as Curiosity scours the area, scientists can gaze at geotourists and find landscapes old and new. There are several types of bedrock and sand, including active sand ripples that have changed over the past year. Pebbles are scattered everywhere - are they eroding from the local bedrock? A Mosaic taken by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover looks at Mount Sharp, which has been climbing since 2014. Highlighted in white is a rocky area filled with clay that scientists are eager to explore. It could shed more light on the role of water in creating Mount Sharp. On May 20, 2018, NASA's Curiosity rover successfully drilled a 2-inch-deep hole in the target called Duluth, the first rock sample captured by the drill since October 2016. A Mosaic of images shows a boulder-sized rock called "Strathdon," which is made up of many complex layers. NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Mastcam to capture these images on July 9, 2019, the 2461 day of mission day. The Mosaic of this image shows a large rock, called "Strathdon," with sediment on it, as seen by the Mars Handheld Lens Imager carried by NASA's Curiosity rover. These images were taken on July 10, 2019, the 2,462nd Martian day. NASA's Curiosity rover has captured the highest-resolution panoramic view of the surface of Mars to date. The composite image consists of more than 1,000 images taken during the 2019 Thanksgiving holiday and carefully assembled over the following months to include a 1.8 billion pixel view of the Martian landscape. The mobile station's Mastcam uses its telephoto lens to produce panoramic views. A dramatic view of the Martian landscape can be seen in new images taken from space, suggesting that NASA's Curiosity rover is studying a site called woodland Bay. This is just one of many stops the station makes in an area known as the "clay bearing unit" on the Sharp side of the 3-mile-high (5-kilometer-high) mountain inside gale Crater. NASA's Mars Curiosity rover's HiRISE camera is seen on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in this image taken from space on May 31, 2019. In the image, curiosity is shown as blue blobs.

The team behind NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars is facing the same challenge faced by many remote crews - keeping curiosity running smoothly at all times. Working remotely, extra effort is required to ensure that everyone understands each other. On average, they plan to spend an hour or two more each day than usual. But for the most part, curiosity is as scientifically productive as ever.