Inside Huge Mars Rover's Sky Crane Landing (Infographic)

by Karl Tate

Date: 18 November 2011 Time: 12:11 PM ET

Curiosity, the latest wheeled vehicle to be sent to explore Mars, is the size of a small car and will use a unique method of landing on the Red Planet.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity Mars rover, is a huge six-wheeled robot the size of a small car. The nuclear-powered rover won't land using rockets or airbags like past Mars missions. Instead, NASA has built a rocket-propelled sky crane that will hover over the Martian surface and lower the $2.5 billion rover to the Red Planet's surface. Learn all about how the Mars rover's landing will work in the SPACE.com infographic above, then check out the following Mars rover mission features.

Photo Gallery: Last Look at Mars Rover Curiosity Before Launch
Video: Curiosity Rover's Peculiar Mars Landing Described
Mars Explored: Landers and Rovers Since 1971 (Infographic)
New Mars Rover Powered By Plutonium
How the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Works (Infographic)

Embed: Paste the code below into your site.

A graphical representative of NASA’s space shuttle.

NASA's Space Shuttle – From Top to Bottom (Infographic)

See how solar flares, sun storms and huge eruptions from the sun work in this SPACE.com infographic.

Anatomy of Sun Storms & Solar Flares (Infographic)

The Japanese Hayabusa Asteroid exploration mission overcame numerous system failures to return meteor samples to Earth.

How Japan's Hayabusa Asteroid Mission Worked (Infographic)

MORE INFOGRAPHICS

TWITTER ACTIVITY

FACEBOOK ACTIVITY

Inside Huge Mars Rover's Sky Crane Landing (Infographic)

More Infographics