NASA scientists are celebrating after pulling off the most daring Mars landing in history.
They today received a signal across space to show if their Mini Cooper-sized rover Curiosity had touched down on the Red Planet in a manoeuvre dubbed “mission impossible” — and compared to a golfing hole-in-one.
Senior engineer Allen Chen said: "Touchdown confirmed - we’re safe on Mars."
On the ground ... Curiosity is lowered on to the surface of Mars and the Sky Crane zooms away
Experts spent years planning the mind-boggling landing, which involved lowering the life-seeking probe from a contraption dubbed Sky Crane into a tight oval within the giant Gale Crater.
And they watched happily as Curiosity beamed back the first black-and-white pictures from inside the crater showing its wheel and its shadow, cast by the afternoon sun.
Launched in Cape Canaveral, Florida, last November, the craft had to slow from 13,000mph to just 1mph in a period officials called “seven minutes of terror”.
Barack Obama hailed the success “an unprecedented feat of technology."
Long distance traveller ... Curiosity enters the atmosphere at 13,000mph and deploys parachute
Their aim then was to set it down gently at 6.30am UK time, where nuclear-powered Curiosity was due to spend two years analysing rock and martian soil in a search for organic material.
Among its tools is a “ray gun” laser that can vaporise rock from 7ft away so an on-board laboratory can tell what it is made of.
Results will show if life could have been present billions of years ago.
Mars Science Laboratory mission manager Arthur Amador said the task was: “to fly through the eye of the needle.”
NASA's Rover is all systems go for a touch down tonight. After a journey from Earth of 350 million miles
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