Curiosity
It's been driving on Mars, alone, for 13 years — and it's not done.
In one sentence
Curiosity is a car-sized robot that drives on Mars, drills into rocks, and runs a chemistry lab inside itself.
The wow factor
Three things that make Curiosity genuinely impressive.
It runs on a tiny nuclear battery — no sunlight needed for years.
It celebrated its first Mars birthday by humming 'Happy Birthday' to itself.
Its 'Sky-Crane' landing manoeuvre had never been tried before — and worked perfectly.
How it works
A step-by-step breakdown, in plain English.
- 1Two stereo cameras build 3D maps of the Martian terrain ahead.
- 2Onboard software picks a safe driving path around rocks.
- 3Curiosity drives at 0.14 km/h — slow but ultra-careful.
- 4Robotic arm drills 5-cm-deep cores into rocks for analysis.
- 5The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) lab runs chemistry tests on collected samples.
Where you've probably seen it
A Pixar-style NASA animation of the Sky-Crane landing has 30M+ views. Curiosity is the only robot to receive a "Happy Birthday from Earth" Twitter trend yearly.
The team behind it
Adam Steltzner led the entry-descent-landing team at JPL. Sylvestre Maurice (France) co-led the ChemCam. The full team had ~3,000 engineers and scientists across NASA, JPL, ESA, and partner institutions.
The full story
NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 via the famous Skycrane manoeuvre. Curiosity is the size of a small SUV (3 m long, 2.7 m wide, 900 kg) and is powered by a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) that converts heat from plutonium-238 decay into electricity. Curiosity carries 10 science instruments including ChemCam (a laser that vaporises rocks to analyse their spectra), SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars — a chemistry lab), and Mastcam (high-res cameras). In over 13 years of operation, Curiosity has driven more than 32 km across Mars, drilled 41+ samples, climbed Mount Sharp, and confirmed Mars once had conditions suitable for microbial life.
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Family tree
The predecessors and successors of Curiosity.
- Sojourner(1997)
- Spirit(2004)
- Opportunity(2004)
- Curiosity(2012)
- Perseverance(2021)
Curiosity in 2 minutes
Learn the science behind Curiosity
Three Atlas entries that explain how Curiosity actually works.
Mind-blowing facts
Curiosity has driven over 32 km on Mars — slower than a tortoise but on another planet.
It celebrates every Mars anniversary by humming "Happy Birthday" to itself.
The "Seven Minutes of Terror" landing was so complex that NASA had no live communication for the entire descent.