Curiosity’s First Drive on This Week @NASA04:33

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has made its first footprints on Mars. Curiosity completed a short drive during which rover drivers at The Jet Propulsion Laboratory commanded Curiosity to move forward, perform a series of turns and move in reverse. The six-wheeled one-ton rover traveled roughly 20 feet from the spot where it made its landing in early August. Meanwhile the Curiosity science team has named the landing site after the late Ray Bradbury, an influential author and a huge proponent of Mars exploration. Bradbury, who passed away earlier this year, would have been 92 on the day of the announcement. Also, NASA has selected a new mission, set to launch in 2016, that will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars, Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center are testing early scale models of NASA’s Space Launch System, The Orion Multi-purpose Crew Vehicle undergoes its first vertical drop test and more!