Water on Mars of these salts". NASA also reported that Jake M rock, a rock encountered by "Curiosity" on the way to Glenelg, was a mugearite and very similar to terrestrial mugearite rocks. On December 9, 2013, NASA reported that Mars once had a large freshwater lake inside Gale Crater, that could have been a hospitable environment for microbial life. On December 16, 2014, NASA reported detecting an unusual increase, then decrease, in the amounts of methane in the atmosphere of the planet Mars; in addition, organic chemicals were detected in powder drilled from a rock by the "Curiosity" rover. Also, based on
Mars sample-return mission an orbiter, a fetch rover, and a Mars ascent vehicle (MAV). In mid-2006, the international Mars Architecture for the Return of Samples (iMARS) Working Group was chartered by the International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG) to outline the scientific and engineering requirements of an internationally sponsored and executed Mars sample-return mission in the 2018–2023 time frame. In October 2009, NASA and ESA established the Mars Exploration Joint Initiative to proceed with the ExoMars mission, whose ultimate aim is "the return of samples from Mars in the 2020s". A first step in this was one particular proposal, a joint project between