The US space agency is getting ready to launch later this month the biggest, most expensive robotic vehicle ever built to explore Mars for signs of previous life there, NASA said Thursday.
The Curiosity rover, known formally as the Mars Science Laboratory? (MSL), is a $2.5 billion state-of-the-art vehicle equipped with video cameras and a sophisticated mobile tool kit for analyzing rocks and soil on the red planet.
The launch of the 1,982-pound (899-kilogram) rover is set for November 25 at 10:21 am (1521 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
"This is a Mars scientist's dream machine," said Ashwin Vasavada, MSL deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"This is the most capable scientific explorer we have ever sent out... We are super excited."
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