Unmanned NASA missions on July 2, 2009, showing a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium ("Sea of Clouds"). Launched on June 18, 2009, in conjunction with the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), as the vanguard of NASA's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program, this is the first United States mission to the Moon in over ten years. LRO and LCROSS are the first missions launched as part of the United States's Vision for Space Exploration program. Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a NASA mission to land and operate a rover named "Curiosity" on the surface of Mars. It was launched
NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge The NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge, prior to 2014 referred to as the Great Moonbuggy Race, is an annual competition for high school and college students to design, build, and race human-powered, collapsible vehicles over simulated lunar/Martian terrain. NASA sponsors the competition, first held in 1994, and, since 1996, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center hosts. Students created vehicles dubbed "moonbuggies" to face challenges similar to those engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center addressed in preparation for Apollo 15. On that mission, on July 31, 1971, the first Lunar Roving Vehicle extended the range