Dr. David Blake is the Principal Investigator of CheMin, a mineralogical instrument that is included in the analytical laboratory of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. MSL will launch in 2011 and operate on the surface of Mars for two years. A principal goal of MSL is to identify and characterize present or past habitable environments on Mars. During the mission, CheMin will perform quantitative mineralogical analyses of rocks and soil delivered to it by the MSL sampling system. Mineralogy is important to the goals of the MSL mission because minerals are thermodynamic phases, formed or altered under specific (and known) conditions of temperature, pressure and composition. The CheMin instrument was conceived and developed at Ames Research Center over a nearly 20-year period by Dr. Blake. Dr. David Des Marais is a member of the MSL Chemin XRD/XRF science team. His role has been to contribute to the development of Chemin to help optimize its astrobiology-related observations, to interpret XRD/XRF data, and to utilize his prior experience with the Mare Explorations Rovers to help prepare for MSL mission operations. During the operational period of the mission (2012-2014), CheMin activities will be managed and directed from Ames. Dr. Robert Haberle is a science team member of the Spanish-provided Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS). REMS uses sensors to measure the 3-D wind, air and ground temperature, relative humidity, surface pressure, and UV dosage. Dr. Haberle has provided the science and instrument requirements the REMS payload needs to meet in order to address questions related to large-scale dynamics and the dust, water, and CO2 cycles.