On August 5th, 2012, the Curiosity rover touched down on Mars. The most crucial part of its journey to Mars weren’t the 8 months travelling the space, but rather the final descent, called Entry Descent Landing (EDL) which was dubbed ‘Seven Minutes of Terror‘. It’s called this because the rover had 7 minutes to get from the top of Mars’ atmosphere to the surface, and to go from 13,000 miles an hour to 0 miles an hour.
The first step in this descent begins about 45 minutes and 2,000 miles above Mars, with Curiosity being tucked inside the spacecraft’s aeroshell. As the rover enters the atmosphere at nearly 13,200 miles an hour, it is protected by the heat shield, which is facing the ground, and a backshell. Spanning 14.8 feet, this is the largest aeroshell used in a mission to Mars thus far. After a bit of hypersonic aero-maneuvering, whatever that is, a parachute measuring 51 feet across is deployed to help slow the shell down. The heat shield is then ejected to allow the computers and cameras on Curiosity to see the ground and guide the descent. Once closer to the surface, computers on the rover cut off the parachute and turn on rockets to slow the descent even more.If the whole unit got close to the ground with the rockets on, dust from the ground could hurt the rover, so Curiosity is lowered via a sky crane with a 21 foot tether. The rover is then gently placed on the ground, wheels down.
Source: Space.com
