Mars Science Laboratory landing site location was an elliptical area . Gale Crater's diameter is . The landing location for the rover was less than from the center of the planned landing ellipse, after a journey. NASA named the rover landing site Bradbury Landing on sol , August 22, 2012. According to NASA, an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 heat-resistant bacterial spores were on "Curiosity" at launch, and as much as 1,000 times that number may not have been counted. Mars Science Laboratory Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully
Mars Exploration Rover Mars Exploration Rover NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission is an ongoing robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rovers: MER-A "Spirit" and MER-B "Opportunity"—to explore the Martian surface and geology; both landed on Mars at separate locations in January 2004. Both rovers far outlived their planned missions of 90 Martian solar days: MER-A "Spirit" was active until 2010, while MER-B "Opportunity" is still active in 2018, and holds the record for the longest distance driven by any off-Earth wheeled vehicle. The mission's