The Craziest Space Landing Ever

Imagine barreling towards a parking spot at over 21,000 km/h, then braking so hard that within seven minutes you’ll slide into the gap as if you were pulling into your driveway. This is NASA’s plan to deliver Curiosity, its new R20 billion rover, to Mars on 5 August. Here’s how they hope to do it...

What Is Curiosity?

Curiosity, technically called the Mars Science Laboratory, is the fourth ‘rover’ that NASA plans to land on Mars. Larger than a Mini Cooper and weighing over a ton, it is by far the largest vehicle ever sent to any planet. Curiosity’s main mission is to see if life once existed on Mars by analysing the soil. It will also give us a much better idea if humans could ever live on the red planet. To achieve this Curiosity is the most advanced robot ever built and has state-of-the-art equipment to do its job. But the hardest part is getting it there...