Mars Rover's "crazy" landing, step by step

Before the Mars Science Laboratory, aka Curiosity, can begin exploring Gale Crater (as shown in this artist's conception), the rover will have to survive a landing NASA calls seven minutes of terror (see video).

In that brief time around 1:30 a.m. ET Monday, friction, a parachute, and an unprecedented "sky crane" hovercraft will help take Curiosity from 13,200 miles (21,200 kilometers) an hour to zero—if everything goes to plan.

"When we proposed this plan, we were almost laughed off the project," Adam Steltzner, NASA's chief engineer for the operation, says in the new National Geographic e-book Mars Landing 2012. "People said it couldn't possibly work."

The Curiosity rover is the largest and...

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