Mars Science Laboratory Lifts Off for Red Planet

NASA's Curiosity rover has begun the journey to Mars after its Atlas V rocket launched successfully from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Nov. 26. Ten instruments aboard MSL will provide new data about whether the area within and around Mars' Gale Crater could ever have supported microbial life. The Mars Science Laboratory is expected to reach Mars next August.

[EpicRobloxianReal]

Happy 10 years on mars Curiosity, we love you!!

[uxeokbt]

Great coverage of MSL's ascent. It's nice to see MSL on its way to Mars.

[quasitransient]

Watched it live...awesome!!! man's final frontier..here we go! Safe journey Curiosity!

[jacksonlefteye]

i get teary-eyed watching this...i just wish people around me could understand how awesome this is...we're sending a friggin' robot to a planet an unfathomable distance away, FOR SCIENCE!

[austinindian]

@NASAtelevision Please post up all the camera footage taken from the rockets and payload like at 3:00. In the past you posted similiar video of the last shuttle launch, I believe. It was amazing to watch the raw footage and the sounds.

[KurdstanPlanetarium]

Great lift off with it the Kurdistan Planetarium name is proudley on board destined for Mars Gale Crater, wish MSL a great success and a smooth landing..

[divisioneight]

That Atlas Rocket sure has some thrust!

[aetiusg]

Thank you, NASA for all that you do. You give humanity hope for the future and you are truly the beacon of what is good and amazing about America. God Bless.

[rakoty]

best best of LUCK and Success to USA/NASA

[CynicalwithApurpose]

Seeing this restored my faith in humanity today.... not sure why

[KarchK]

glorious launch. had to watch it live on Nasa TV streaming on my laptop but this quality is much better, I don!t haave broadcast tv / this is awesome!

[craigjkb]

thanks didnt wakeup in time for this but much better in HD ..

[captainofiron]

AWESOME!, I really wish the Centaur had a camera on it to downlink video.

[PipeBombTom]

Retiring the shuttle without an immediate, viable replacement left me shocked and appalled. Good to see we're at least doing something to continue human space exploration.

[EVAUnitA]

Best of luck to Curiosity and its team!

[sandersassen]

Goosebumps all over, nice going chaps, my compliments!

[anarchyonline]

goodjob not showing the onboard camera enough

[Herarry]

It would be cool if one day we got advanced enough in Audio/Visual stuff to attach so

[Herarry]

It would be cool if one day we got advanced enough in Audio/Visual stuff to attach some kind of camera that could stream on the rocket in space. But I guess it's not doable yet.

[VOXS]

there should of been a continuesly stream cam built on this as it heads to mars... all we see was just a 5 minute lunch rocket and thats it.. But it would be interesting to see a live feed of the thing heading to mars.. a cam on the back and a cam on its front.. to view as it heads to mars and the back camera to view perhaps planet earth been distance and other planets near by.