
PASADENA, Calif. — The rover Curiosity, which NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission will place on Mars in August 2012, has been rolling over ramps in a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to test its mobility system.
Curiosity uses the same type of six-wheel, rocker-bogie suspension system as previous Mars rovers, for handling uneven terrain during drives. Its wheels are half a meter (20 inches) in diameter, twice the height of the wheels on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers currently on Mars.