Not Your Daddy's Dune Buggy: What We Can Expect From the Next Mars Rover
NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover NASA
This vehicle will be similar to the Curiosity Rover -- but better.
The Curiosity Rover may seem like the be-all, end-all of Martian vehicles, but NASA is just getting started. In the next five years, the space agency plans to launch another robotic science rover.
The rover, currently still in the planning phase, will take much of its design from Curiosity, including the ability to dig up samples. This time, however, engineers hope to give the 2020 vehicle the capability of preparing and bringing Martian soil samples back home to Earth for further research.
"One of the challenges on the 2020 mission is reusing previous missions' DNA and architecture," said William Allen, a mechanical design engineer with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We're revamping our infrastructure, processes and tools to be able to accommodate this and to become very efficient at doing this. This will help maximize our resources on future missions."
To learn more, check out the video below from NASA: