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
Crewed Mars rover called MOLAB. One of the ideas for Molab was for it touch down on its wheels, what was called a "rover first" concept. MOLAB had a pressurized cylinder for crews to operate in a shirt-sleeve environment even on an extraterrestrial surface. For options for keeping track of location as the rover moves around Mars include: Navigation on Mars is noted as important issue for human missions to the planet. Celestial navigation, used for over 500 years on Earth, may provide a way of locating on the Mars surface to within about 100 meters (109 yards). Navigation is especially relevant to