Exploration of Mars over the Pacific Ocean. The NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission with its rover named "Curiosity", was launched on November 26, 2011, and landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater. The rover carries instruments designed to look for past or present conditions relevant to the past or present habitability of Mars. NASA's MAVEN is an orbiter mission to study the upper atmosphere of Mars. It will also serve as a communications relay satellite for robotic landers and rovers on the surface of Mars. MAVEN was launched 18 November 2013 and reached Mars on 22 September
Human mission to Mars further developed concepts developed in previous NASA DRM and updated it to more current launchers and technology. NASA released an updated version of NASA DRM 5.0 in early 2009, featuring use of the Ares V launcher, Orion CEV, and updated mission planning. In this document. Extrapolated from the DRMA 5.0, plans for a crewed Mars expedition with chemical propulsion. Austere Human Missions to Mars In a major space policy speech at Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010, then-U.S. President Barack Obama predicted a crewed Mars mission to orbit the planet by the mid-2030s, followed by a landing: The United