NASA plans to launch car-size Mars rover in November

NASA's car-sized Mars rover Curiosity, which will examine one of the most intriguing areas on the Red Planet, is in final preparations for a launch from Florida 's Space Coast at 10:25 a.m. EST (15:25 GMT) on Nov. 25, the U.S. space agency announced on Thursday. Curiosity is about twice as long and more than five times as heavy as any previous Mars rover. Its 10 science instruments include two for ingesting and analyzing samples of powdered rock delivered by the rover's robotic arm. It is now sitting atop an Atlas V rocket awaiting liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. "Preparations are on track for launching at our first opportunity," said Pete Theisinger, Mars Science Laboratory project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "If weather or other factors prevent launching then, we have more opportunities through Dec. 18." Scheduled to land on the Mars in Aug. 2012, the one-ton rover will examine Gale Crater during a nearly two-year prime mission. Curiosity will land near the base of a layered mountain three miles (five kilometers) high inside the crater. The rover will investigate whether environmental conditions ever have been favorable for development of microbial life and preserved evidence of those conditions.