Infographic of how the Mars Curiosity Rover works #CSIROTweetup

This is a pretty good simple summary of how Curiosity will get around and do its thing.


Source Space.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

At 900kgs and about the size of a Mini, it's a lot bigger than Spirit and Opportunity.

And because it's nuclear powered rather than solar like the previous rovers, dust on panels won't be a problem. Just had better get to escape velocity I guess - unlike Russia's Phobos Grunt probe, now stuck in low Earth orbit and likely to come crashing back to Earth, due to the third-stage rocket not firing...