Right now there are two NASA robots exploring the Martian surface — the Curiosity rover and its older cousin, Opportunity — while a fleet of orbiters from NASA and the European Space Agency circle above. With each landing on the Red Planet over the past three decades, the understanding of how to get safely to the surface has improved. Bigger probes require new technologies, such as the rocket-powered "sky crane" that lowered the 1-ton Curiosity rover onto the Red Planet on cables in August 2012. NASA's Mars InSight lander, which is slated to blast off in 2016, and the agency's Mars 2020 rover will both examine gusts in that region, said Victoria Friedensen, NASA's robotic precursor mission lead.
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