NASA's Curiosity rover lands on Mars

quote news.cnet.com

PASADENA, Calif.--Dutifully executing its complex flight control software, the Mars Science Laboratory silently raced toward its target Sunday, picking up speed as it closed in for a 13,200-mph plunge into the Red Planet's atmosphere and an action-packed seven-minute descent that will require a rocket-powered "sky crane" to lower a one-ton nuclear-powered rover to the surface.

The target is Gale Crater and the goal is a pinpoint landing near the base of a three-mile-high mound of layered rock that represents hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of years of martian history, a frozen record of the planet's changing environment and evolution.

Exploring the crater floor and climbing Mount Sharp over the next two years, the Curiosity rover will look for signs of past or present habitability and search for carbon compounds, the building blocks of life as it is known on Earth.

But first, the rover has to get there and its entry, descent, and landing represent the most challenging robotic descent to the surface of another world ever attempted, a tightly choreographed sequence of autonomously executed events with little margin for error.

"We're about to land a rover that is 10 times heavier than (earlier rovers) with 15 times the payload," Doug McCuistion, director of Mars exploration at NASA Headquarters, told reporters. "Tonight's the Super Bowl of planetary exploration, one yard line, one play left. We score and win, or we don't score and we don't win.

quote ditto

Lmao what happens if it crashes and we waste billions of monies?

quote Superwalnut

quote ditto

Lmao what happens if it crashes and we waste billions of monies?

"We learn from our mistakes." - NASA Guy

quote Tonystew42

Misleading title is misleading.