美国宇航局Nasa向火星发射最先进的漫游车。一枚“阿特拉斯”火箭在佛罗里达卡纳维拉尔角发射，装备有一套精密的仪器和工具，用于调查这颗红色行星上是否有生命存在。我们的科学记者Jonathan Amos观看了发射过程。

"Three, two, one, main engine start, zero and lift-off of the Atlas V with Curiosity."

“三、二、一，主引擎启动，零，发射‘阿特拉斯5号’和‘好奇号’”。

A clean getaway for Nasa's biggest mission to Mars yet - a one-tonne rover nicknamed Curiosity. A radio message confirming the vehicle was safely on its way was received an hour later. But this was the easy part for Curiosity. Next August it must try to land on what one senior space agency official this week called the "death planet". Getting down onto Mars surface in one piece is notoriously difficult, and most efforts have failed. The Americans, though, have a good recent record and they believe a new rocket-powered descent system will be able to place the rover in one of the most exciting locations on the planet.

这是Nasa目前最大的登火星计划，发射了一辆一吨重的漫游车，代号为“好奇号”，一小时后就收到了证实漫游车安全运行的无线电信号。但这只是“好奇号”最简单的一项任务，明年八月将试登一颗本周被资深宇航局官员称为“死亡行星”的星球。在火星表面每下降一步都相当困难，很多努力都失败了。然而美国人有过不错的记录，他们相信使用一种新型火箭动力下沉系统，就可把漫游车放置到火星最合适的位置上。