From all early reports, it seems like the Mars Curiosity landing went off perfectly. So many things could have gone wrong, and almost any one of them could have resulted in disaster.
NPR’s Joe Palca had a good report that captured the sequence of events during the landing, the rising tension as each critical stage approached, relief as it was completed successfully, and the final jubilation when Curiosity touched down.
You can read more about the mission and see the first photos beamed back at the NASA website.
Congratulations, NASA! Curiosity is a tribute to science and engineering at its best.
2 comments
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Joe T
August 6, 2012 at 12:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But remember, the moon landing was a hoax….
Jeff Hess
August 7, 2012 at 5:36 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Good morning Mano,
I did something Monday morning that I haven’t done in more than 40 years, I stayed up way past my usual bed time to watch a NASA event.
Watching Curiosity touch down was not quite as thrilling as seeing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the Moon, but it was close.
Beyond the amazing engineering involved, I found myself enraptured by the staff in the mission room. The diversity of people there was so very different from the mission control of July 1969.
Do all that you can to make today a good day,
Jeff
YES THEY DID…! | Have Coffee Will Write
August 7, 2012 at 5:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] 0536 They did it! [...]