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They will load themselves (if there're enough on the map). You need to load everything else (fuel, resources) and unload excess resources first. Once the Rocket is cleared for launch, the rovers/drones/colonists will find their way to it. (If there are not enough rovers/drones/colonists, nothing will happen, and this will be indicated as a warning in the Rocket's infopanel.)
 
The expeditions should work regardless of whether you have Rival Colonies or not. If the Rocket doesn't launch when it seems that it should, please post an in-game bug report with a savegame (Ctrl+F1). We had a number of issues with the reworking of the Rockets so that they can visit other locations on Mars, you may have hit something we haven't seen yet.
 
I notice that rockets unload all fuel before launching for on-Mars travel. Is that by design? It seems weird that they don't need fuel at all. Also, it's kind of annoying, because my drones fuel up rockets in almost no time and then I always have to wait for them to unfuel the rockets before launching.
 
Wouldn't it be easier to just leave the fuel at full, launch, and then take away some number when the rocket returns? Instead of unloading all the fuel, then loading it back again after?
 
Wouldn't it be easier to just leave the fuel at full, launch, and then take away some number when the rocket returns? Instead of unloading all the fuel, then loading it back again after?
Realistically? (Or at least a reasonable nod to realism.) No. Fuel is *really* heavy, and would require burning more fuel to lift all that extra fuel.