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New Mars rover preparing for launch at KSC

CAPE CANAVERAL — With its launch still at least five months away, NASA's Curiosity rover, the biggest and most advanced built to explore Mars, completed its journey from California to Kennedy Space Center this week.

An Air Force C-17 transport plane on Wednesday delivered the rover and the descent stage that will help lower it to the Martian surface.

A cruise stage and aeroshell that will protect the vehicle during its descent were already here at KSC.

"The design and building part of the mission is nearly behind us now," David Gruel, a mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said. "We're getting to final checkouts before sending the rover on its way to Mars."

NASA is targeting a blastoff of the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18 atop an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The launch would put the car-size rover and its 10 instruments on track to land on Mars in August 2012, beginning at least a two-year science mission intended to determine whether Mars ever had environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life.

NASA's inspector general warned earlier this month that NASA was in danger of missing the launch window or reducing the mission's goals because of the significant work still remaining to resolve technical challenges before launch.

Missing the upcoming window would mean a delay of another 26 months due to planetary alignments, and an increase in mission costs of at least $570 million, the report said. The mission is already two years behind after missing its original window in 2009 due to technical issues.

NASA officials said they are confident they'll be ready to launch Curiosity later this year without scaling back its mission.