John F. Kennedy Space Center - Expendable Launch Vehicles

The Mars Exploration Rover mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet. The program seeks to take advantage of each launch opportunity to go to Mars, which comes around every 26 months as the planets move around the Sun. Scheduled for two separate launches, the two rovers will be delivered in landing craft to separate sites on Mars in January 2004.