NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission is preparing to send a large, mobile laboratory — the rover Curiosity — to the Red Planet. Plans call for a launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., between Nov. 25 and Dec.18, 2011, and an arrival at Mars in August 2012.
Curiosity is about twice as long (about 3 meters or 10 feet) and five times as heavy as NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.
You and your students look inside the clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to watch the next Mars rover being built. The camera is located in a viewing gallery above the clean room floor. There is no audio on this video feed. As of October 2010, technicians are working from approximately 8 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. PDT Monday through Friday.
For more information about the mission, download the pdf, and then check out the cool mission website.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus website.