With its shuttle fleet already retired from launching missions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is moving on and unveiling plans to determine the possibility of life in Mars.

A day after the shuttle program drew to a close with the return of Atlantis to planet earth, NASA has bared that it is preparing a robotic science laboratory for launch in November 25 to land in a mountain in a crater in August 2012. With the space agency’s space exploration strategy still pending, many Americans believe that the termination of the shuttle program would signal the end of US dominance in space.

Under President Barack Obama’s space program, NASA will be focusing on building new spaceships that is capable of traveling beyond near-Earth orbit and eventually launch astronauts to asteroids, Mars, and other deep space destinations.

Officials of the space agency will hold a news briefing next Wednesday to discuss details of its upcoming Juno mission to Jupiter. The unmanned spacecraft will be launched in August and is expected to reach Jupiter’s orbit by July 2016. The mission should help provide an understanding of the origins of the solar system by uncovering the beginnings of the largest planet in the solar system.

NASA is turning over its three space shuttles to museums to start focusing on developing new manned exploration program. The space agency is targeting sending missions to the inner solar system which is presently explored by robots. The plutonium-powered Mars Science Lab named Curiosity is due to launch in November.

Two times longer and five times higher than the Mars rover Spirit, Curiosity will have 10 science instruments, a couple of which are dedicated for on-site chemical analysis of pulverized rock. Scientists are hoping that the mission will help them analyze the possibility of life in Mars.

Scientists have spent five years evaluating 60 possible landing sites before trimming down the list to just four and eventually one, the Gale Crater, a three-mile stretch of high mountain rocks rising from the crater floor, making it two times the height of the exposed rocks in the Grand Canyon.

Curiosity’s mission is scheduled to last a couple of years, but scientists are hoping the rover will exceed its warranty. Another Mars rover, which arrived after three-month surveys in January 2004, is still functional. Another rover perished in the harsh environment of Mars just last year. The two rovers were able to prove that the planet was once wetter and warmer than it is today.

The Kennedy Space Center is supervising preparations for the launch of Curiosity from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, adjacent to the launch pads of the space shuttles.

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