Mars Exploration Program various components of the EDL systems on Earth-based testing. However, the costs of reproducing environments in which this data would be relevant in terms of Mars' environment are considerably high, resulting in testing being purely ground-based or simulating results of tests involving technologies derived from past missions. InSight, launched from Earth May 5, 2018, the lander touched down on Mars November 26, 2018 on Elysium Planitia. Mars exploration missions, as do most NASA missions, can be fairly costly. For example, NASA's "Curiosity" rover (landed on Mars in Aug 2012) has a budget exceeding $2.5 billion. NASA also has goals of
Mars Exploration Rover Endeavour Crater, eight years after landing. The orbital spectroscopy of this crater rim show the signs of phyllosilicate rocks, indicative of older sedimentary deposits. Mars Exploration Rover NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission is an ongoing robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rovers: MER-A "Spirit" and MER-B "Opportunity"—to explore the Martian surface and geology; both landed on Mars at separate locations in January 2004. Both rovers far outlived their planned missions of 90 Martian solar days: MER-A "Spirit" was active until 2010,