Tonight is the night when, just out of curiosity, NASA gambles $2.5 billion
on a Look-Mom-No-Hands, one-time only, multi-stage descent to Mars.
CNET
by Dara Kerr
August 3, 2012
How NASA tests an against-all-odds Mars rover landing
Quote:
The space agency has dubbed Curiosity's imminent landing "seven minutes of terror."
And that's even after months of excruciating, exacting preparation.
It's not every day that you land a spacecraft on Mars, even if you're NASA.
And in the case of the Curiosity rover, hurtling toward a Mars landing
as Sunday night turns into Monday morning,
the space agency is tempting fate with a novel approach that involves
a big parachute, a specially designed winch, and some very high hopes.
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