Curiosity’s Much-Anticipated Landing On Mars Just Hours Away

PASADENA (CBSLA.com) — NASA hopes to make history Sunday.

The Curiosity rover is expected land onto Mars at 10:31 p.m. culminating an 8 1/2-month journey.

Engineers with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have coined the descent “seven minutes of terror” because during that time the spacecraft will decelerate from a speed of about 13,000 mph to 1.7 mph.

Due to the delayed communications across 35 million miles of space, it will take mission controllers about 14 minutes before they know whether the landing was successful.

Louisa Hodge, reporting for CBS2 and KCAL9, says the one-ton, car-size rover was ten years in the making at a cost of $2.5 billion.

It carries 10 science instruments, including a mast that extends seven feet above ground with cameras.

Experts say the “Curiosity landing is the hardest NASA mission ever attempted in the history of robotic planetary exploration.”

“During the hours that we have left here before landing, the flight team will remain vigilant, monitoring and accessing the health of the spacecraft and tracking its trajectory and preparing any necessary changes to guidance and entry parameters,” said Mission Manager Arthur Amador on Saturday.

When entering Mars, Lodge reported that the spacecraft will deploy a supersonic parachute. A sky crane system will lower it on tethers.

“The landing system for Curiosity is pretty amazing. It’s the biggest vehicle we’ve ever put down on the Martian surface and the heaviest so it required some new inventions,” said JPL Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada. “One of those new inventions was the ability to fly the Rover down on sort of a rocket jet pack the last few miles through the surface.”

If the Rover lands successfully on the surface, it will spend two years roaming the planet in search of signs of life.