NASA's biggest Mars rover poised for blastoff (AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ? NASA is all set to launch the world's biggest extraterrestrial explorer.

A six-wheeled, one-armed Mars rover is due to blast off Saturday morning from Cape Canaveral. The unmanned Atlas V rocket will put the spacecraft on an 8 1/2-month trek to the red planet.

The rover, nicknamed Curiosity, is the size of a car. It's a mobile laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and analyze them right there on the surface. There's a drill as well as a stone-zapping laser machine.

Curiosity will spend two years looking for evidence that Mars may once have been ? or still is ? suitable for microbial life.

The mission costs $2.5 billion.

Forecasters expect decent launching weather.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_sc/us_sci_mars_rover

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