Curiosity (rover) to Mars in 2020. Some spare parts from the build and ground test of "Curiosity" may be used in the new vehicle. On August 5, 2017, NASA celebrated the fifth anniversary of the "Curiosity" rover mission landing, and related exploratory accomplishments, on the planet Mars. (Videos: "Curiosity" First Five Years (02:07); "Curiosity" POV: Five Years Driving (05:49); "Curiosity" Discoveries About Gale Crater (02:54)) As reported in 2018, drill samples taken in 2015 uncovered organic molecules of benzene and propane in 3 billion year old rock samples in Gale Crater. The NASA/JPL Mars Science Laboratory/"Curiosity" Project Team was awarded the 2012
Mars Pathfinder Mars Pathfinder Mars Pathfinder (MESUR Pathfinder) is an American robotic spacecraft that landed a base station with a roving probe on Mars in 1997. It consisted of a lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and a lightweight (10.6 kg/23 lb) wheeled robotic Mars rover named "Sojourner", which became the first rover to operate outside the Earth–Moon system. Launched on December 4, 1996 by NASA aboard a Delta II booster a month after the "Mars Global Surveyor" was launched, it landed on July 4, 1997 on Mars's Ares Vallis, in a region called Chryse Planitia in the Oxia Palus quadrangle.