NASA landed a new robotic vehicle on Mars Monday morning 6th – August. The vehicle is called “Mars Curiosity”, it’s the size of a car, powered by a nuclear power source and was dropped on the planet in an extremely novel way that verges on science fiction but is now science fact.
Pictured is one of the first color photos for the Mars Rover Curiosity.
Here are some great videos showing what Mars Curiosity is all about and the landing sequence. The first video is a good explanation as to what is happening during the landing sequence. The last two videos are footage from the Nasa control center as the landing happened (14 mins after it actually happened on Mars!)
Watch this first. You get good background on what this landing sequence is all about and also you get familiar with some faces that will crop up in the last two videos
This video shows the landing sequence from the point where the lander is approaching Mars right up to the point where it starts to hit the Mars upper atmosphere. There’s not to much happening in this video but you start to get a sense of what’s to come…
This video picks up with a minute or two gap from where video two left off. At the start of this one the lander has just deployed it’s supersonic parachute. This is where it get interesting!
