NASA has confirmed the rover Curiosity has landed on Mars. Its descent-stage retrorockets fired, guiding it to the surface.

Nylon cords lowered the rover to the ground in the "sky crane" maneuver. When the spacecraft sensed touchdown, the connecting cords were severed, and the descent stage flew out of the way.

The time of day at the landing site is about 3 pm local Mars time at Gale Crater. The landing marks the beginning of a two-year prime mission to investigate one of the most intriguing places on Mars.

NASA's most high-tech Mars rover zeroed in on the red planet where it attempted a tricky celestial gymnastics routine during "seven minutes of terror'' to plummet?through the atmosphere.

The Curiosity rover was poised to hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at 21,000km/h. It was slowly lowered by cables inside a massive crater in the final few seconds.

NASA was ready for the "Super Bowl of planetary exploration,'' said Doug McCuistion, head of the Mars exploration program at NASA headquarters. "We score and win or we don't score and we don't win,'' said McCuistion.

Mission control at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory was expected to hear a signal at 3.31pm.

The Parkes telescope in rural NSW - which was pivotal in the Apollo Moon landing in 1969 - is one of the sites receiving radio signals which reveals whether the landing had been a success. An antenna in Perth is also being deployed.

NASA's Sami Asmar, who is monitoring the landing from Parkes, said the landing of a very large rover onto the surface of another world, another planet was "complicated and many things can go wrong and NASA acknowledges that," he told the ABC.

Space fans gathered at a major deep space communications centre near Canberra to await the touchdown of Curiosity on the surface of Mars.

The Deep Space Communications Complex at Tidbinbulla, about 40km from the national capital, is playing a key role in the mission. It will be the first station in NASA's deep space network to receive signals from the rover after it lands.

Curiosity was launched to study whether the Martian environment ever had conditions suitable for microbial life.? The voyage to Mars took over eight months and spanned 566 million kilometres. The trickiest part of the journey? The landing. Because Curiosity weighs nearly a ton,?engineers drummed up a new and more controlled way to set the rover down.

The last Mars rovers, twins Spirit and Opportunity, were cocooned in air bags and bounced to a stop in 2004. The plans for Curiosity called for a series of braking tricks, similar to those used by the space shuttle, and a supersonic parachute to slow it down. Next: Ditch the heat shield used for the fiery descent.

And in a new twist, engineers came up with a way to lower the rover by cable from a hovering rocket-powered backpack. At touchdown, the cords cut and the rocket stage crashes a distance away.

Curiosity's goal: To scour for basic ingredients essential for life, including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur and oxygen. It's not equipped to search for living or fossil microorganisms. To get a definitive answer, a future mission needs to fly Martian rocks and soil back to Earth to be examined by powerful laboratories.

【新聞快訊】

法新社消息，據(jù)地面控制中心發(fā)回的消息，美國航空航天局耗資25億美元打造的“好奇號”火星車剛才已經(jīng)順利登陸火星。此前它向地面發(fā)回首個信號。美國有線電視新聞網(wǎng)畫面顯示，美國宇航局工作人員正在擊掌相慶。

人類是否宇宙中唯一的智能生命體？其他星球上還有沒有生命？隨著美國航天局火星科學實驗室耗資25億美元的火星探測器“好奇”號登陸火星，關于生命體的探索也將逐漸揭開謎底?！?/p>

經(jīng)過254天的太空飛行，美國“好奇”號火星探測器于美國東部時間8月6日1時31分（北京時間13時31分）登陸火星，在“蓋爾”隕石坑內(nèi)中心山丘的一處山腳下著陸?！昂闷妗碧栱樌懞?，將展開為期一個火星年(約687個地球日)的探測，其主要任務是查明火星過去或現(xiàn)在是否存在適宜生命存在的環(huán)境?！　?/p>

由于信號中轉原因，“好奇”號著陸的信號最快也要在14分鐘后才能傳遞到地面控制中心。所以，即使在控制中心也無法看到“好奇”號登陸的實時畫面。屆時位于紐約時報廣場的LED顯示屏將直播“好奇”號火星探測器登陸火星的全過程，與此同時，人們還可以登錄NASA官網(wǎng)觀看網(wǎng)絡直播?！　?/p>

美國航天局副局長約翰·格倫斯菲爾德7月31日表示：“歷史上很多重大新聞事件都讓人聯(lián)想到時報廣場，我認為沒有比時報廣場更好的地方慶祝這一發(fā)生在火星上的重大事件?！薄∪欢顷懖⒎禽p而易舉，任何差錯都可能導致此前的努力化為泡影?！　?/p>

“恐怖7分鐘”就是從“好奇”號抵達火星大氣層頂部的那一刻開始，直到降落到火星表面為止，將耗時7分鐘。在這短短的7分鐘內(nèi)，“好奇”號將穿過厚達128千米的火星大氣層，承受高達約2400攝氏度的高溫，如果“好奇”號沒有被燒毀，它還必須在準確的時間張開降落傘，并打開8個火箭引擎，讓降落速度從2.1萬千米/小時降至0。但是，此前所有成功接觸到了火星大氣的11次火星任務中，有5次由于在進入大氣層、下降和著陸階段出現(xiàn)故障而失敗，這也是為什么工程師們將這個階段稱為“恐怖7分鐘”的原因。?