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
Human mission to Mars considerations for using aerocapture on crewed missions is a maximum G-limit to experience, for which it was noted 5-g's (5 times Earth gravity) was a common limit to be planned for. There may be several landers, for example, separate ones for the crew, a habitat, rover, supplies, ascent vehicle, etc. Landed spacecraft on the surface of Mars: One of the big challenges to landing on Mars was overcome by Mariner 4, when it showed the properties of the atmosphere. Another was a basic survey of the planet, to know what place might be suitable to land. This has been overcome