Watch Curiosity grow

The next Mars rover, Curiosity, is being built right now in the clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA and you can watch the progress live on the new webcam!.

Curiosity is scheduled to be launched late next year and land on Mars in August 2012. It is also much larger than the two previous rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, at 10 feet long, 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall. It is nuclear powered, so not dependent on solar panels for energy and hosts a geology lab, including rock-vaporizing lasers and the cameras can take both high-resolution photos and video. It will search for evidence of past or present conditions suitable for life.