NASA robots craft that will be designed to fly in a formation. The Mars rover Curiosity is a mobile laboratory that was launched from Cape Canaveral in 2011. The Curiosity landed on Mars surface August 6, 2012. This was the largest rover NASA has put on Mars, being twice as long and five times as heavy as its processors. Despite the extra size the Curiosity took many design elements from the previous generation of Mars rovers such as six wheel drive, rocker-bogie suspension, and cameras mounted to the mast of the rover to help the mission's team direct the rover. However unlike
Spirit (rover) to attempt to regain contact until May 24, 2011, when NASA announced that efforts to communicate with the unresponsive rover had ended, calling the mission complete. A formal farewell took place at NASA headquarters after the 2011 Memorial Day holiday and was televised on NASA TV. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington. The primary surface mission for "Spirit" was planned to last at least 90 sols. The mission received several extensions and lasted about 2,208 sols. On August