Bolden said NASA's Mars research is the biggest part of the planetary science budget.
That's the big news coming out of this latest discovery from NASA's Mars rovers.
Beside its direct scientific role, Mars Odyssey is also an important link in America's Mars-exploration programme.
The ESA's Mars Express leads the pack of several probes expected to land on Mars in the next decade.
America's Mars Polar Lander was supposed to touch down on 3 December, 1999.
"This mission will give us the first ever robot field geologist on Mars, " Scott Hubbard, Nasa's Mars programme director, said.
Looking like a sportier version of NASA's Mars Rover, the first wireless, Web-connected robot sees, hears and speaks for you.
The overarching strategy of NASA's Mars Exploration Program has long been to follow the water, and Curiosity is no exception.
MSN: Curiosity aims to unlock Mars mysteries - Technology & science - Space - Space.com | NBC News
Nasa's Mars rover Curiosity has used its brush tool for the first time to sweep dust off the surface of a rock.
Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
ENGADGET: NASA's Curiosity rover receives long-distance OTA update, 'brain transplant' on Mars
"This is the most challenging landing we have ever attempted, " said Doug McCuistion, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Mars exploration program.
The image was taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the rover's 44th Martian day, or sol, on Mars (Sept. 19, 2012).
The instruments on board Venus Express had been developed as back-ups for either Esa's Mars Express spacecraft or Esa's comet-chaser mission, Rosetta, due for launch in January.
The elevation measurements were collected by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), an instrument aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, during the spring and summer of 1998.
That clever piece of engineering was a tiny lander that was carried to the Red Planet in 2003 on board the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter.
The image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter represents the first time a Mars landing has been captured by another spacecraft.
Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said the observations provided the strongest evidence to date that water still flowed occasionally on the surface of Mars.
Passing over the landing site early Monday, the space agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a dramatic image of Curiosity plunging toward the surface, dangling from its fully deployed, 51-foot-wide parachute.
The overall goal of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission is to use 10 instruments on Curiosity to assess whether areas inside Gale Crater ever offered a habitable environment for microbes.
ENGADGET: Curiosity rover finds radiation levels on Mars are safe for humans
But the main means of communication with Beagle 2 was always intended to be its mother ship, the European Space Agency's Mars Express, from which it was released on December 19th.
ECONOMIST: The current crop of Mars missions has got off to a bad start
Indeed, there's geologic evidence from the rover and from NASA's Mars orbiters that there may once have been a large lake and streams within the basin that Curiosity is driving around in now.
Some of the latest images from NASA's Global Surveyor mapping mission around the red planet are making that abundantly clear, a group of scientists and engineers interested in NASA's Mars mission set for a 2001 launch learned recently.
Images taken by the orbiting NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft enabled scientists to detect changes in the walls of two craters in the southern hemisphere of Mars, apparently caused by the downhill flow of water in the past few years.
And in case you missed the latest robotic resident arriving on Mars you can watch the action replay and view the very first pictures beamed back from the surface of the Red Planet on Nasa's Mars Science Laboratory mission homepage.
"The role of liquid water on Mars is of great importance for its habitability and this study using Mars Express describes a very large zone where groundwater was present for a long time, " said Olivier Witasse, a project scientist with ESA's Mars Express.
MSN: New proof that water existed underground on ancient Mars
The heroes of Mr Morton's book are the astronomers who yearn to solve Mars's scientific puzzles, the science-fiction writers who project their politics on to Mars's blank canvas, and the space-flight enthusiasts who dream of Martian colonies.
The first wheeled vehicle to land on Mars was during NASA's 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission, which consisted of a stationary lander and a surface rover called Sojourner.
Contact has finally been made with Russia's troubled Mars mission, says the European Space Agency (Esa).
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