While NASA may be struggling to get its Starliner crew home, it's worth remembering that some 12 years ago, the agency celebrated the successful deployment of the Curiosity rover to the surface of Mars.
NASA Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity Rover) Mission Animation [HDx1280]
The six-wheeled trundle bot landed on the Martian surface on August 5, 2012, showing just what the agency's boffins could do when given the time, budget and space to be creative. Resident vulture Iain Thomson was present at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena during the landing, which was full of more excitement than the vast majority of movies set on the Red Planet.
Curiosity was the first NASA rover to use the agency's Sky Crane technology, quite different from the airbags of its predecessors Spirit and Opportunity. The plan for the earlier rovers and last century's Mars Pathfinder mission was to use a parachute after atmospheric entry. Airbags would inflate around the lander during its descent. At about 20 meters (66 ft) from the surface, retrorockets would be fired to halt the descent, and then the lander would be released to bounce to a stop on the surface.
Curiosity, however, was a completely different beast. First, the rover is much larger than its predecessor. NASA also wanted to land it in places airbags couldn't go. Engineers were forced to come up with an alternative: the Sky Crane. Yes, there was still a parachute. But that was where the similarities ended.
