Aeolis Palus Aeolis Palus Aeolis Palus is a plain between the northern wall of Gale crater and the northern foothills of Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp) on Mars. It is located at . The NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission landed the "Curiosity" rover on Aeolis Palus in August 2012. "Curiosity" spent two (Earth) years exploring the plain as it drove towards Aeolis Mons. The rover left the plain in September 2014 when it reached the mountain's foothills. On August 5, 2012, at 10:32 p.m. PDT/mission time (August 6, 2012 at 5:32 UTC), mission control at JPL received a signal from the NASA "Curiosity"
NASA Design Reference Mission 3.0 NASA Design Reference Mission 3.0 NASA Design Reference Mission 3.0 was a NASA study for a human space mission to the planet Mars in the 1990s. It was a plan for a human exploration architecture for Mars, and was released in 1998 as an addendum to the early design plans released in 1994. The plan is for a series of multiple launches to send various space transpiration, surface exploration hardware, and human crew to Mars, and to return the crew to Earth in the early 21st century. Various technologies are explored to launch the payloads into space, to send them