NASA Photography

Both the Pioneer and the Voyager program carries messages from the Earth to extraterrestrial life. A problem with far space travel is communication. For instance, at present it takes about 3 hours for a radio signal to reach the New Horizon spacecraft at a point more than half way to Pluto. Contact with Pioneer 10 was lost in 2003.
On 26 November 2011, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission was successfully launched for Mars. The mission is scheduled to land the robotic "Curiosity" rover on the surface of Mars in August 2012, whereupon the rover will search for evidence of past or present life on Mars.
• Recent and planned activities
NASA's ongoing investigations include in-depth surveys of Mars and Saturn and studies of the Earth and the Sun. Other active spacecraft missions are MESSENGER for Mercury, New Horizons (for Jupiter, Pluto, and beyond), and Dawn for the asteroid belt. NASA continued to support in situ exploration beyond the asteroid belt, including Pioneer and Voyager traverses into the unexplored trans-Pluto region, and Gas Giant orbiters Galileo (1989–2003), Cassini, and Juno (2011–).