Curiosity Mars-Rover Landing: "Everything Worked Perfectly"
"Seven minutes of terror" gave way to clockwork performance, first photos.
To go from hypersonic space capsule to naked, wheels-down rover, the vehicle, due to its unprecedented bulk, had to undergo multiple reconfigurations—each a potential mission killer. (Pictures: Mars Rover's "Crazy" Landing, Step by Step.)
And yet, the landing "was fantastic," said mechanical-systems engineer Tommaso Rivellini, who helped design the Mars landing procedure.
"From what we can tell right now, it looks like a textbook landing," said Rivellini, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, where news of the landing was met with cheers, tears, and high fives.
(See "Curiosity Landing on Mars Greeted with Whoops and Tears of Jubilation.")
In a welcome bonus, within two or three minutes the rover had sent back two tiny black-and-white pictures, one
