Curiosity's First Trailblazing Images From Mars

As Curiosity descended toward Mars, it captured a shot of its 15-foot-wide heat shield about three seconds after it separated from the vehicle. The heat shield was one piece of the rover's aeroshell, a protective covering that kept the rover safe as it entered the Martian atmosphere. Once the rover successfully made it through the intense heat of entry, the heat shield's job was complete and it was released from the craft.

When Curiosity landed on Mars it dispelled a few big pieces of hardware. After entering the Martian atmosphere the rover first released its heat shield, followed by the black shell that was attached to its parachute. Once Curiosity landed, the cables connecting it to its touchdown system, called the sky crane, were cut, and the sky crane flew off clear of the landing site. Following the successful touch down, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught a picture of the landing site, allowing NASA to identify where each piece of the rover ended up.

Moments after Curiosity landed on Mars late Sunday night, it sent back its first photo: a low-resolution shot of the landing site and its shadow. Because the camera still had its clear dust cover on, dust is visible around the image's edges.

Shortly after landing, the rover captured a clearer image of its surroundings, taken through a "fisheye" wide-angle lens. In the bottom right area of the image, the rover's wheel is visible along with part of the spring that released the camera's dust cover.

This extraordinary image shows Curiosity parachuting into Mars late Sunday night, ending its eight-month journey from Earth. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the photo. Look carefully at the left side of the image and you can see the rover's fully inflated supersonic parachute above its shiny black shell.

Before sending Curiosity to Mars, the mission team tested similar rovers on California sand dunes. This rover, called Scarecrow, moves like Curiosity but doesn't have its sophisticated onboard computer.

The Curiosity rover is equipped with 17 cameras: nine hard-mounted to the rover's body, seven on the vehicle's mast, and one, called the Mars Hand Lens Imager, located at the end of a robotic arm. 

An artist's sketch illustrates Curiosity's descent to Mars, from entry to landing.

Time to celebrate: NASA engineers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena, Calif., erupted in cheers when they learned the rover landed safely Sunday night.

JPL's engineers celebrate Curiosity's successful landing.

Artist's stills created before Curiosity made its descent show how the rover would communicate with engineers during its landing. The two types of data illustrated are radio-frequency tones that go directly to earth (shown as pink dots) and UHF radio data (shown as blue circles) that are relayed through orbiters.

JPL engineers rejoice as they share the first image Curiosity sent back from Mars.