The Mars Science Lab mission is underway! Shortly after a successful landing on August 5th, the Curiosity rover began sending high resolution images of the Mars surface to the mission team!

Keep up with the latest developments with these links.

The Mars Science Laboratory is the new NASA Mars mission. The spacecraft will deliver the Curiosity rover to the Red Planet on August 5-6, 2012 and you’re invited to participate! The Jet Propulsion Lab has put together a web page full of games, apps, viewing details, and activities for students, teachers, and the general public. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/

Curiosity is scheduled to land on Mars at 1:31 a.m. EDT on Monday, Aug. 6, 2012. (That's 10:31 p.m. PDT, Sunday, Aug. 5.) That evening, Mars will be visible in the night sky with a telescope or with the naked eye. Take this opportunity to host a Mars-gazing party! Just after sunset, Mars will be roughly 150 million miles away from Earth, and the Curiosity Rover will be only hours away from arriving to this distant orange dot in the night sky. Submit your events to http://www.nasa.gov/mars.

Looking for activities to get students excited about the upcoming landing? A number of short, hands-on activities relating to the mission are available at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/participate/marsforeducators/soi/.

For a basic overview of the Red Planet, visit the following websites:

Want to know more about the area where the Curiosity rover will be landing on Mars? Visit the following websites to learn more about Gale Crater.

The Curiosity rover will landing using a bold new landing technique. Check out the "Seven Minutes of Terror" video at the link below to see how rockets, parachutes and a "sky crane" will help Curiosity make a soft landing on Mars.
"Seven Minutes of Terror" video:   http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/videos/index.cfm?v=49

Live media coverage of the Curiosity landing begins at midnight EDT (9 p.m. PDT) on NASA TV. To find NASA TV on your local cable provider, or to view the coverage online, visit http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv.

Curiosity also has a presence on Twitter and Facebook:

For up-to-the-minute mission information about the Curiosity rover and progress toward its Mars landing, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mars and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov.