Curiosity, Nasa’s $2.5bn robotic rover, landed safely on Mars yesterday morning after a complex descent involving a parachute, retrorockets and a hovering “sky crane”, reinforcing US dominance of space even after the end of the shuttle programme.
After what Nasa called “seven minutes of terror”, the car-sized laboratory announced its survival by transmitting to Earth images, including one showing its wheels and another of its shadow on the dusty surface.
When the first pictures arrived at mission headquarters in California, prolonged cheering and applause broke out among the blue-shirted scientists and engineers. “The seven minutes of terror has turned into the seven minutes of triumph,” said John Grunsfeld, Nasa head of science.
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