Timeline of Mars Science Laboratory its journey across Mars, having traveled , since its landing in 2012; on August 1, 2013, the rover traveled over one mile: . On August 6, 2013, NASA celebrated "Curiosity" first year on Mars (August 6, 2012 to August 5, 2013) by programming the rover to perform the "Happy Birthday" song to itself. NASA also released several videos (video-1, video-2) summarizing the rover's accomplishments over the year. Primarily, the mission found evidence of "ancient environments suitable for life" on Mars. The rover drove over one-mile across the Martian terrain, transmitted more than 190 gigabits of data to Earth, including 70,000
Mars Pathfinder Tony Spear. This mission was the first of a series of missions to Mars that included rovers, and was the first successful lander since the two "Vikings" landed on the red planet in 1976. Although the Soviet Union successfully sent rovers to the Moon as part of the Lunokhod program in the 1970s, its attempts to use rovers in its Mars program failed. In addition to scientific objectives, the "Mars Pathfinder" mission was also a "proof-of-concept" for various technologies, such as airbag-mediated touchdown and automated obstacle avoidance, both later exploited by the Mars Exploration Rover mission. The "Mars Pathfinder" was