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
Mars Exploration Rover sequence on airbag inflation and backshell RAD rocket firing. Airbags used in the Mars Exploration Rover mission are the same type that Mars Pathfinder used in 1997. They had to be strong enough to cushion the spacecraft if it landed on rocks or rough terrain and allow it to bounce across Mars' surface at highway speeds (about 100 km/h) after landing. The airbags had to be inflated seconds before touchdown and deflated once safely on the ground. The airbags were made of Vectran, like those on Pathfinder. Vectran has almost twice the strength of other synthetic materials, such as Kevlar,