The performance this August of a brand-new system for landing on Mars means life or death for NASA's next rover mission, but future Mars exploration hangs on a perfect touchdown as well.
"NASA's video depicting the next Mars rover's descent toward the martian surface makes some planetary scientists nervous (http://scim.ag/rovervideo). NASA has $2.5 billion riding on the success of Curiosity's scary-new “sky-crane” landing system designed by engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). If Curiosity crashes as it dangles by cables from its flying platform festooned with blazing rockets, some scientists will see a decade or more of their careers crash with it."
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