Mars rover 'hardest NASA robotic mission ever attempted,' says NASA (+video)
At 10:30 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5, the one-ton, $2.5 billion Curiosity rover is scheduled to touch down on Mars, in what experts are calling a risky landing.
NASA's newest Mars rover is less than a week away from its high-stakes landing on the surface of the Red Planet.
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover is scheduled to touch down on Mars at 10:30 p.m. PDT on Aug. 5 (1:30 a.m. Aug. 6 EDT, 0530 GMT). The car-size robotic explorer is designed to investigate whether Mars is, or ever was, capable of hosting microbial life.
With six days to go until Curiosity arrives at the Red Planet, project managers are bracing themselves for what NASA calls the riskiest part of the mission: the rover's harrowing descent through the Martian atmosphere to the ground.
John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, took part in a news briefing on July 16 to discuss the MSL mission. He called Curiosity's landing "risky business."
"The Curiosity landing is the hardest NASA robotic mission ever attempted in the history of exploration of Mars, or any of our robot exploration," Grunsfeld said.
