NASA's Life finding Mission on Mars

Rover curiosity of the American space agency blasted off Saturday on a trip of nearly nine months for Mars, where he will look for signs that life once existed on the red planet.

The rover is the largest and most powerful ever built and is part of the spacecraft of Mars Science Laboratory of NASA's $ 2.5 billion which took off at 10:02 (1502 GMT) at the top of an Atlas V rocket.

"Liftoff of Atlas V with curiosity, seeking clues to the planetary puzzle about life on Mars," said NASA commentator George Diller as the rocket white rose skyward space-cushion to Florida.

After landing in August 2012, scientists hope that he will return with valuable information about past, present and future habitability of Mars to help the American space agency plan for a human mission there, perhaps by the 2030s. While the rover is not equipped to detect living organisms, he can find examples of organic carbon indicate that life once existed on Mars, or that perhaps it still does in microbial form.

Curiosity is fuelled by nuclear fuel and is approximately twice the size of solar-powered twin NASA rovers spirit and opportunity landed in 2004.

He carries a robotic arm, a drill, a set of 10 scientific instruments, including two color video cameras, a laser beam to zapping interesting rocks and a kit of tools for analyzing its contents.