In its first week on Mars, Curiosity will deploy its main antenna, raise a mast outfitted with cameras, the rock-vaporizing laser and other tools, and take its first panoramic photo.

But now that the incredible hurdle of landing on Mars is out of the way, NASA isn't rushing the mission Scientists will initially as well as mapping out its future routes before setting off on the first drive. The rover won't scoop its first sample of soil until at least mid-September, and it will be October or November before it first drills into rock.

The one-ton rover and its spacecraft plummeted into the Martian atmosphere hustling at a blistering 13,000 mph.

Withstanding 65,000 lbs. of force, its huge supersonic parachute slowed Curiosity's decent to about 200 mph, after which the spacecraft deployed a kind of hovercraft with retrorockets that further slowed Curiosity to about 0.75 meters per second and gently lowered it down to the planet's surface via 25-foot-long cables.