The coming Mars Science Lab mission video is available with various resolution options here (they are also downloadble!). This animation doesn’t focus as much on the trip to Mars as the MAAS ones have in the past, I would imagine that NASA wanted to highlight all the advanced science this mission will be performing instead of focusing on the long cruise to get there.

Take a look especially at the part of the mission where apparently they actually shoot a laser beam at various targets and take measurements of, what I would imagine, are the gasses emitted from such a burn. It also illustrates the process by which MSL will be taking soil and rock samples for in-depth investigations. This mission is exactly what it claims to be… a roving Science Lab on Mars. This is as close to having astronauts on the surface as our current technology can allow… that is… without actually sending someone… which our current technology does allow.

NASA has put out a “Return to the Moon” trailer at anon.nasa-global.edgesuite.net

If you have never seen the incredibly real animation of landing a Mars rover on Mars made by the people at MAAS Digital, you have to see this. Normally these computer generated animations are hardly real not only in look, but the physics usually feel quite fake as well. NASA finally got around to finding someone who could turn around a truly real animation of what landing on Mars actually looks and feels like. When stages drop and seperate you really get a sense of it. When the MER air bags inflate and bounce to a resting stop, you would swear there was a camera on the ground to capture the process.

Now the same masters at MAAS Digital give us a preview of what the Mars Phoenix Lander will hopefully be successfully executing in May of 2008 when it lands on the Martian surface. I didn’t get a chance to see the incredible MER animation until well after the mission was already operating at Mars, so it’s nice to see this well before the mission is even launched to get a sense of what is to come.