Curiosity Has Landed

August 6, 2012
Language
  • english

Relive the nail-biting terror and joy as NASA's Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT).


TRANSCRIPT

Things are looking good. Coming up on entry

Vehicle reports entry interface

We're beginning to feel the atmosphere as we go in here

Alright, it is reporting that we are seeing G's on the order of 11 or 12 earth G's

Bank reversal 2 is starting

We are now getting telemetry from Odyssey

We should have parachute deploy around Mach 1.7

Parachute has deployed

We are decelerating

Heat shield has separated, we are locked on the ground

We're down to 90 meters per second at an altitude of 6.5 kilometers and descending

Standing by for backshell separation

We are in powered flight

We are at altitude 1 kilometer and descending

Standing by for sky crane

Sky crane is starting

Signal from Odyssey remains strong

Touchdown confirmed! We're safe on Mars!

(Cheering) (Applause)

We got thumbnails. It's a wheel! It's a wheel!

(Music)

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology