The US space agency is set to announce Thursday the instruments that will be carried aboard the agency's Mars 2020 mission rover.
The announcement will take place at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC.
The new "roving laboratory" is the successor to the widely celebrated Curiosity rover.
The "roving laboratory" is powered by a radioisotrope generator that gives the rover an operating life-span of at least a full Martian year. This equals 687 days on Earth.
NASA received 58 proposals in January for science and exploration technology instruments to fly on board the Mars 2020 mission.
This is twice the average number of proposals submitted for similar competitions, and serves as an indicator of the public's prolific interest in exploring Mars, the space agency said.
