WASHINGTON – The Curiosity rover has landed in the lowlands of Mars.
The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft carrying the 1-ton rover reached the surface at Gale Crater at about 1:32 a.m. eastern time on Monday (Aug. 6).
Shortly before Curiosity’s entry, descent and landing, Adam Steltzner, head of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars landing team, told mission controllers: “She’s there because you guys got her there.”
“We have wheels down on Mars,” JPL mission control confirmed as the first photos came in from Gale Crater.
One of the first images sent by the U.S. Curiosity rover from Gale Crater on Mars. (Source: JPL)
Stressing the importance of teamwork in getting Curiosity to Gale Crater, Steltzner said after the landing, "I am terribly humbled by this experience." Referring to the engineers who designed the risky sky crane technique, he added, "Thank you to the blue shirts."
"It doesn't get any better than this," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in the moments after the successful landing.
Mission controllers were pacing nervously in the moments before touchdown as MSL maneuvered toward the surface using a sky crane landing technique for the first time.
NASA said Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some of the tools are the first of their kind on Mars, including a laser-firing instrument for checking elemental composition of rocks from a distance.
Curiosity will explore Gale Crater and the sides of its peak, Mt. Sharp, for signs that the region ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life.
NASA said confirmation of Curiosity's successful landing came in communications relayed by NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter and received by the Canberra, Australia, antenna station of NASA's Deep Space Network.
Steltzner said during a press conference that the sky crane landing looked, "very clean, very nominal."