NASA announced this week that it will launch a new rover to Mars
in 2020. The vehicle will be based on its Curiosity robot, which
landed on Mars back in August of this year. NASA expects to re-
use many of the technologies that worked successfully in getting
the spacecraft down into the equatorial bowl known as Gale
Crater. The announcement was made at the American Geophysical
Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, which is the largest annual gathering
for Earth and planetary scientists as well as a big showcase for
NASA-led research. NASA's associate administrator for science
John Grunsfeld made the announcement on behalf of the American
space agency, stating: "The new rover's going to be based on the
[Curiosity] chassis, and it's really building on the tremendous
success of the engineering of Curiosity. It will have new
instruments. We're going to put out a letter to colleagues to
ask for folks who want to be in the science definition team. And
the idea is to work through the winter and spring, and have an
announcement o