Exploration of Mars over the Pacific Ocean. The NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission with its rover named "Curiosity", was launched on November 26, 2011, and landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater. The rover carries instruments designed to look for past or present conditions relevant to the past or present habitability of Mars. NASA's MAVEN is an orbiter mission to study the upper atmosphere of Mars. It will also serve as a communications relay satellite for robotic landers and rovers on the surface of Mars. MAVEN was launched 18 November 2013 and reached Mars on 22 September
Mars 2020 that were under consideration for Mars 2020. A workshop was held on 8–10 February 2017 in Pasadena, California, to discuss these sites, with the goal of narrowing down the list to three sites for further consideration. The selected sites are: In November 2018, it was announced that Jezero crater was chosen as the planned landing site for Mars 2020 rover. A key mission requirement for this rover is that it must help prepare NASA for its Mars sample-return mission (MSR) campaign, which is needed before any crewed mission takes place. Such effort would require three additional vehicles: an orbiter, a