Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada— NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Curiosity is set to land in the Red Planet, marking the first time a manned spacecraft has touched down on another world.
Curiosity will land in Gale Crater near the city of Redford, Canada, at the end of this month, according to NASA.
The rover is expected to spend at least one year exploring the Martian surface.
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team is preparing to begin operations for the mission, and is currently working on the plans for a landing site.
According to a NASA statement, “a site in Gale will allow the team to begin the painstaking process of building a robotic base on Mars, complete with a rover and landing legs, while at the same time creating an environment suitable for microbial life.”
MSL landed in Gale on Aug. 5, 2016.
The landing is a first for a Mars mission, NASA said, and the team hopes to have a landing platform ready by November 2021.
The team is working on several technical hurdles to achieve the Mars landing, NASA added.
The company has been working on Curiosity since 2011, and has received numerous awards for its work on Mars.
MSL has also sent back images of the Martian landscape.
NASA is planning to send a spacecraft to the surface of Mars by the 2030s.
NASA said that the rover will take samples to the planet’s surface for testing.