If you haven't yet seen the video, check out what's being called the "" video that details the engineering challenges involved in getting Curiosity to Mars, including this sky crane system. NASA Planetary Science Directory James Green says this is "the most difficult entry, descent, and landing... of a planetary science rover ever attempted, anywhere" in the solar system.
How do you get from rocketing over 13,000 miles per hour in space to safely roving on the red planet?
After slowing down through the Martian atmosphere with a parachute, the spacecraft with the rover will deploy what's effectively a hovercraft with retrorockets. The hovercraft (has anyone nicknamed it Boba Fett?) will lower Curiosity down to the surface at , then whisk itself away from the rover landing site and to crash elsewhere on Mars. Curiosity will unfold itself, and begin roving on the surface of Mars to learn more about the history of Martian geology, especially the effects of water.
Looking for ways to learn more about the mission, or the red planet in general? Here are a couple events happening around the country on Friday and beyond.
(formerly NASA Tweetups) are happening at seven NASA centers today (Friday, August 3), and are a great way to hear from actual rocket scientists and engineers who've been involved in this mission since its inception. You can watch them live on , too.
For the actual landing, late Sunday night/Monday morning, you have a host of watching options. If you're in New York City, you can watch the landing on a huge LED television screen. NASA also , and will be streaming live to and starting at 9pm Pacific (12am Eastern; 4am GMT). You can also follow along on and .
Curious about rocks on Mars? If you're in one of a few cities across the USA, you can see made to look like actual Martian boulders. Sponsored by Explore Mars (not NASA), this Martian "rock" campaign hopes to get the country excited about future missions to return Mars rocks to Earth, as well as the possibility that Mars may have hosted life in the past.
If the NASA webcasts aren't enough for you, you can get a closer look at the Curiosity rover, as well as other spacecraft NASA launched. Amaze your friends and neighbors with , an that lets you turn a printed drawing of a spacecraft into a rotatable 3D spacecraft rendering.
NASA's shows a 3D rendering of the entry, descent, and landing sequences Curiosity's expected to go through on Sunday night. While NASA won't have live TV coverage of the landing from Mars, you can follow along the rendering using .
Equipped with an Xbox 360? Use your Kinect to try . It's harder than you think!
Want to try your hand at launching your own missions? NASA's Launch Services Program has a game called "Rocket Science 101" where you can learn about different rocket components and what goes into making a launch successful. You can play on , or a in your browser.
For those craving more Mars video with a pop culture twist, you can have rover footage narrated by . Yes. And here's from the Curiosity album, of course.
Mars Science Laboratory's landing on Mars is the culmination of eight years of planning, designing, building, testing, and launching. Green predicts the landing sequence will be a "white-knuckle experience to say the least."
What does a successful landing mean? Hopefully more exciting planetary exploration missions, and even ones where robots collect Martian rocks and launch them back to Earth in the coming decades. Regardless of if Curiosity successfully starts roving on Mars come Monday morning, according to Green, "for Curiosity and planetary science on August 6th, one way or another, our world will not be the same."
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Alessondra Springmann is a master of planetary science and a proponent of solar system exploration. Follow her other writings: and .
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