Yellowknife Bay, Mars the Glenelg member and began its journey to Mount Sharp. NASA scientists estimated this drive would take the rover a year to complete. Yellowknife Bay, Mars Yellowknife Bay is a geologic formation in Gale Crater on the planet Mars. NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Rover, named "Curiosity", arrived at the low lying depression on December 17, 2012, 125 sols, or martian days, into its 668 sol planned mission on the planet. Primary mission goals of the Mars Science Laboratory were to assess the potential habitability of the planet and whether or not the Martian environment is, or has ever been, capable
Mars sample-return mission complexity and technical problems. One mission concept (provisionally named simply Mars Sample-Return) was originally considered by NASA's Mars Exploration Program to return samples by 2008, but was cancelled following a review of the program. A NASA-ESA concept mission was aborted in 2012. The United States' Mars Exploration Program, formed after "Mars Observer" failure in September 1992, supported a Mars sample-return. One example of a mission architecture was the "Groundbreaking Mars Sample-Return" by MacPhereson in the early 2000s. In early 2011, the National Research Council's Planetary Science Decadal Survey, which laid out mission planning priorities for the period 2013–2022 at the