Mars Exploration Program various components of the EDL systems on Earth-based testing. However, the costs of reproducing environments in which this data would be relevant in terms of Mars' environment are considerably high, resulting in testing being purely ground-based or simulating results of tests involving technologies derived from past missions. InSight, launched from Earth May 5, 2018, the lander touched down on Mars November 26, 2018 on Elysium Planitia. Mars exploration missions, as do most NASA missions, can be fairly costly. For example, NASA's "Curiosity" rover (landed on Mars in Aug 2012) has a budget exceeding $2.5 billion. NASA also has goals of
ExoMars (rover) ExoMars (rover) The ExoMars rover is a planned robotic Mars rover, part of the international ExoMars programme led by the European Space Agency and the Russian Roscosmos State Corporation. The plan calls for a Russian launch vehicle, an ESA carrier module and a Russian lander that will deploy the rover to Mars' surface, scheduled to launch in July 2020. Once safely landed, the solar powered rover would begin a seven-month (218-sol) mission to search for the existence of past life on Mars. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, launched in 2016, will operate as the rover's data-relay satellite. The rover is