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
Mars landing heat flow from the deep interior of Mars, was launched on May 5, 2018. It landed successfully in Mars's Elysium Planitia on November 26, 2018. Additional future missions are the Mars 2020 rover, the Chinese Mars Global Remote Sensing Orbiter and Small Rover, and the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission 2 orbiter. The ESA ExoMars rover, also planned for launch in 2020, should obtain soil samples from up to 2 meters depth and make an extensive search for biosignatures and biomolecules. There is a proposal for a Mars Sample Return Mission by ESA and NASA, but this has been delayed until