Mars Science Laboratory landing site location was an elliptical area . Gale Crater's diameter is . The landing location for the rover was less than from the center of the planned landing ellipse, after a journey. NASA named the rover landing site Bradbury Landing on sol , August 22, 2012. According to NASA, an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 heat-resistant bacterial spores were on "Curiosity" at launch, and as much as 1,000 times that number may not have been counted. Mars Science Laboratory Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully
Mars landing heat flow from the deep interior of Mars, was launched on May 5, 2018. It landed successfully in Mars's Elysium Planitia on November 26, 2018. Additional future missions are the Mars 2020 rover, the Chinese Mars Global Remote Sensing Orbiter and Small Rover, and the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission 2 orbiter. The ESA ExoMars rover, also planned for launch in 2020, should obtain soil samples from up to 2 meters depth and make an extensive search for biosignatures and biomolecules. There is a proposal for a Mars Sample Return Mission by ESA and NASA, but this has been delayed until