Timeline of Mars Science Laboratory its journey across Mars, having traveled , since its landing in 2012; on August 1, 2013, the rover traveled over one mile: . On August 6, 2013, NASA celebrated "Curiosity" first year on Mars (August 6, 2012 to August 5, 2013) by programming the rover to perform the "Happy Birthday" song to itself. NASA also released several videos (video-1, video-2) summarizing the rover's accomplishments over the year. Primarily, the mission found evidence of "ancient environments suitable for life" on Mars. The rover drove over one-mile across the Martian terrain, transmitted more than 190 gigabits of data to Earth, including 70,000
SpaceX Red Dragon mission, as originally proposed by NASA Ames Research Center, were: A 2014 study of a potential 2021 NASA-funded "Red Dragon" mission suggested that it could offer a low-cost way for NASA to achieve a Mars sample return. In the concept, the "Red Dragon" capsule would be equipped with the system needed to return samples gathered on Mars, including a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), an Earth Return Vehicle (ERV), and hardware to transfer the sample collected by a previously landed rover mission, such as NASA's planned Mars 2020 rover, to the ERV. The ERV would transfer the samples to high Earth