dr. davis blake. his baby will be on board. he showed us his mock-up of the chemical mineral instrument he invented that will be on board "curiosity." it will be central to this mission because its role will be to analyze rocks and minerals to see if the red planet ever had the building blocks of life. >> if we care where we came from, we should care about this. the interesting thing about mars is that it actually has a record that dates back to the same time on the earth where life developed, when life developed. earth doesn't have that record because earth has plate tectonics and most of those rocks were pretty much destroyed. so this is a way of kind of looking, turning back into earth history as well as mars history. >> reporter: this is a $2.5 billion mission being run out of jpl, the jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena. that's where all the scientists will be on that sunday night, august 5th, around 10:30 our time. you can be tracking what they're doing of course online. reporting live here at nasa in mountain view, bob

dr. davis blake today no.ay in a room down this busy-looking hall, he showed us one crucial instrument. 22 years of his life in the making. >> is this a center piece of the mission. >> we want to open up the book of mars history. >> there is a mountain in the middle. four billion years layered 20,000 feet high. and curiosity will climb and read how mars developed. >> and this is just like going back in a time machine and looking at mars four billion years ago. >> and they will find out whether they would have conditions whether life would develop. >> if we can move forward that would be history. >> in mountain view, wayne freedman abc 7 news. >> and that is coming in august. >> there is spencer christian here. >> there is a time lapse view this afternoon. there is southeastward we have blue south and east with clouds continuing to travel across the sky. tomorrow we can expect temperatures well below average. some showers north and there is 76 in sacramento and 86 in fresno. here in the bay area there are mixed