MSL, or the Mars Science Laboratory, is the current rover that NASA is talking about. The Mars Science Laboratory Be Cut is a nucleor powered rover, which is as huge as a car and will be three times as heavy and twice the width of the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) that landed in 2004. And it will also be able to trevel twice as far. The rovers main task is drill and search for microscopical life, the thing that Phoenix is trying to do.
One thing is special with this rover, it has many new instruments. For an example, a laser that can zap rocks! it will also carry ten advanced scientific instruments and cameras, and make the first precise landing using a guided entry system and a soft-landing system called the Sky Crane. This sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? But there is one problem, as usual. It will cost a lot to send this rover up to space and then to Mars, in other words A LOT! $1.5 billion dollars is the current price, and it will be more than that. And NASA can't afford this, especially if it reaches a 30-percent cost overrun.  If NASA pushes to launch in 2009 as planned, it will have to find the money to get the rover ready. Any delay until 2010 or 2011 will add at least 300 million dollars to the mission's price tag. The congresse can cancel it then. So what are they going to do? Too keep MSL, NASA will probably be forced to cancel some of their other planned mission, the $485 million 2013 atmospheric Scout mission MAVEN is one example (I wrote about this once). Or maybe something in the future. Now they have to solve this problem, and I know they will. All NASA related projects are interesting, but they cost to much. It would be greate if they used Mars rock or anything else on Mars, and then transform it into fuel. Is it possible?