NASA has announced a one day delay in the launching of $2.5 billion Mars Rover to replace a suspect battery on the rover's rocket.

"The launch is rescheduled for Saturday, Nov. 26 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.," NASA officials said, noting that the one-day launch delay will allow engineers to replace a suspect battery in the rocket's flight termination system.

To make it to the current flight window to Mars, NASA has until Dec. 18 to launch the new rover. The Curiosity rover carries 10 instruments and is designed to find evidence that Mars was once habitable or supported microbial life in the past.

The car-sized rover also carries a laser to shoot rocks to be able to study the gasses released from them. The observations will then be sent back to Earth.

The Curiosity rover, which is about 9 feet (3 meters) long and wide, is NASA's largest Mars rover mission yet and is expected to explore Mars' surface for at least two years. It also has a camera mast that stands about seven feet (2.1 m) tall and equipped with a sophisticated robotic arm that has a reach of up to seven feet.

A nuclear power source will be used to feed its onboard systems instead of the solar arrays used by its wheeled predecessors on Mars: the rovers Spirit, Opportunity and the smaller Sojourner. The rover is designed to land on Mars using a rocket-powered sky crane.

Curiosity is expected to land inside Mars' huge Gale Crater sometime on Aug. 6, 2012.