NASA launching 'Curiosity' to explore Mars

As big as a car and as well-equipped as a laboratory, NASA's newest Mars rover blows away its predecessors in size and skill.

Nicknamed Curiosity and scheduled for launch, the rover has a 7-foot arm tipped with a jackhammer and a laser to break through the Martian red rock. What really makes it stand out: It can analyze rocks and soil with unprecedented accuracy.

Ten feet long, 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall at its mast, Curiosity is about twice the size of previous rovers Spirit and Opportunity, weighs 1 ton and is loaded with 10 science instruments. Its formal name: Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL.

In a spacecraft first, Curiosity will be lowered to Mars' surface via a jet pack and a tether system similar to the sky cranes used by helicopters to insert heavy equipment in inaccessible spots on Earth.

No bouncing air bags like those used for the Mars Pathfinder lander and rover in 1997 and for Spirit and Opportunity in 2004 — Curiosity is too heavy for that.

The rover is scheduled to arrive at the mineral-rich Gale Crater next August, 8½ months after embarking on the 354-million-mile voyage aboard an Atlas V rocket.

Curiosity is the capstone of what NASA calls the year of the solar system. A spacecraft is en route to Jupiter after lifting off last August from Cape Canaveral, and twin lunar probes launched in September will arrive at the moon New Year's weekend.

Once safely down on Mars, the rover will survey the landscape with high-definition and laser cameras mounted like eyes atop its mast. The laser will aim at soil and rocks as far as 23 feet away to gauge their chemical composition.

The rover also has a weather station for updates on Martian temperature, humidity and wind, as well as a radiation detector that will be especially useful for planning human expeditions.

Despite all its fancy upgrades, Curiosity will go no faster than the one-tenth-mile-per-hour logged by past Martian rovers. But it is expected to venture more than 12 miles during its two-year mission. If it's still working after that, it will keep on trucking, possibly all the way up the crater's 3-mile peak.