Nasa rover Curiosity lands on surface of Mars

Mars rover sends first images of Red Planet after surviving make-or-break descent

Last updated: September 15, 2018 | 19:09

1 MIN READ

AP/Nasa

California: The Mars science rover Curiosity landed on the Martian surface shortly after 10:30pm Pacific time on Sunday (0530 GMT on Monday) to begin a two-year mission seeking evidence the Red Planet once hosted ingredients for life, Nasa said.

Mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles said they received signals relayed by a Martian orbiter confirming that the rover had survived a make-or-break descent and landing attempt to touch down as planned inside a vast impact crater.

Nasa has described the feat as perhaps the most complex ever in robotic spaceflight.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity project, formally called the Mars Science Laboratory, is Nasa's first astrobiology mission since the 1970s-era Viking probes.

The landing, a major victory for a US space agency beleaguered by budget cuts and the recent loss of its space shuttle program, was greeted with raucous applause and tears of joy by jubilant engineers and scientists at mission control.

An artist's concept of Nasa's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft approaching Mars.

Image shot off a video screen from Nasa TV shows members of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team celebrating inside the Spaceflight Operations Facility for Nasa's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory after receiving the first few images from the Curiosity rover, in Pasadena, California.

In this image from Nasa TV, shot off a video screen, one of the first images from the Curiosity rover is pictured of its wheel after it successfully landed on Mars.

At the US Space and Rocket Center, hundreds watch images on the big screen from Nasa's Mars Curiosity, which landed on Mars on August 6, 2012.

A general view shows a 70 metre dish (left) and 34metre dish (right) that are tracking Nasa's Mars science laboratory car-sized rover Curiosity at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Station at Tidbinbilla in Canberra on August 6, 2012.

This August 2, 2012 file photo shows Nick Lam, data controller, monitoring the Mars rover Curiosity from the Deep Space Network's control room at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

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