NASA's Mars' Spacecraft Curiosity Safely Lands on Mars

Cheers and shouts of celebration broke out along with sighs of relief among NASA/JPL employees as confirmation of a succesful landing of Curiosity was confirmed Sunday night at 10:31 pm. The spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere at a velocity of 13,000 mph and slowed down to zero in about 7 minutes. This is equivalent to going from 65 mph to zero in your car in 2 seconds. After deploying parachutes, retro rockets were fired again to allow the spacecraft to hover as a crane lowered the rover vehicle to the Martian surface.

Curiosity's 2 year mission is to determine whether microbial life ever existed on Mars and if Mars is capable of sustaining any kind of life forms as well as studying the planets' geology and chemistry. The spacecraft is undergoing 2 weeks tests and checkouts before starting out of the Gale crater on its journey.

"Today, the wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars", according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. The complex set of landing steps were all successfully accomplished using new technology and these technologies will be used on manned spacecraft to Mars said Bolden.

Curiosity sent back some early black & white images used to verify the crafts location and status at the landing sight. These can be seen on NASA's website. www.NASA.gov