PASADENA, Calif. — After a journey of 354 million miles, a spacecraft approaching Mars at 13,200 mph is on course to land inside its sweet spot early Monday.
The landing is one of the riskiest ever tried, and the descent is what NASA officials call “seven minutes of terror.”
Video
The Washington Post’s Marc Kaufman, author of “Mars Landing 2012: Inside NASA’s Curiosity Mission,” explains why the Curiosity mission to Mars is being hailed by NASA’s chief scientist as the “mission of the decade.”
Nonetheless, the spacecraft carrying the Mars rover Curiosity is on target “to fly through the eye of the needle” and touch down within its five-by-13-mile landing elipse, said Arthur Amador, mission manager of the Mars Science Laboratory. “We’re .
The landing is one of the riskiest ever tried, and the descent is what NASA officials call “seven minutes of terror.”
Video
The Washington Post’s Marc Kaufman, author of “Mars Landing 2012: Inside NASA’s Curiosity Mission,” explains why the Curiosity mission to Mars is being hailed by NASA’s chief scientist as the “mission of the decade.”
Nonetheless, the spacecraft carrying the Mars rover Curiosity is on target “to fly through the eye of the needle” and touch down within its five-by-13-mile landing elipse, said Arthur Amador, mission manager of the Mars Science Laboratory. “We’re .