On Monday, August 6 at 1:30 am Eastern Time in the US, the Curiosity rover will land on Mars. The gravitational field on Mars being roughly twice that of the Moon, its atmosphere being so thin, and Curiosity being so big, all posed immense challenges to the scientists and engineers who had to figure out how to gently drop the vehicle onto the surface. It does not help that Mars is so far away that there will be a time lag of 14 minutes for communications to get from Earth to the spacecraft and vice versa, meaning that no adjustments can be made from Earth once the descent begins. [Read more…]