ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION<br/> An unmanned Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Saturday (November 26), launching a 2.5 billion US dollar nuclear-powered NASA rover toward Mars to look for life habitats there.<br/> The car-sized rover nicknamed Curiosity is expected to touch down on Aug. 6, 2012, to begin two years of detailed analysis of a 96-mile (154-km) wide impact basin near the Martian equator called Gale Crater.<br/> The mission's goal is to determine if Mars has or ever had environments to support life. It is the first astrobiology mission to Mars since the 1970s-era Viking probes.<br/> "We have started a new era of exploration to Mars with this mission. Not just technically but scientifically as John said. I hope we have more work than the scientists can actually handle. Once we get to the surface I expect them to be overrun with data that they've never seen before. I expect the public to see images -- vistas -- that we've never seen before either. Down in the bottom of Gale Crater when we land those first images are just going to be stunning, I believe. It will be like sitting in the bottom of the Grand Canyon I think," Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program said.<br/> The 20-story-tall booster built by United Launch Alliance lifted off from its seaside launch pad at 10:02 a.m. EST (1502 GMT), soaring through partly cloudy skies as it headed into space to send NASA's Mars Science Laboratory on a 354-million mile (556 million km), nearly nine-month journey to the 'Red Planet.'
