Article Posted on : - Aug 06, 2012

An artistic concept of Curiosity rover on Mars. A NASA/JPL photo

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA (BNS): US space agency NASA achieved a major milestone on Monday when its most advanced Mars rover, Curiosity, successfully touched down on the Red Planet after a tricky landing exercise.

The one-tonne rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars at 0532 GMT on Aug 6 to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year investigation, NASA announced.

"The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft that carried Curiosity succeeded in every step of the most complex landing ever attempted on Mars, including the final severing of the bridle cords and flyaway manoeuvre of the rocket backpack," the space agency said.

The complicated touchdown for Curiosity was so risky that it had been described as "seven minutes of terror".

"The Seven Minutes of Terror has turned into the Seven Minutes of Triumph," said NASA Associate Administrator for Science John Grunsfeld after Curiosity made the dramatic touchdown on the Red Planet.

Curiosity - the biggest and most sophisticated robotic explorer ever built by NASA - had blasted off on a journey to Mars in November 2011, with a mission to hunt for signs of life that once existed there.

The car-sized, six-wheeled rover, built at a cost of 2.5-billion-dollar, landed near the foot of a mountain three miles tall and 96 miles in diameter inside Gale Crater.

The landing spot for the rover containing the high mountain and many layers of sediment that could reveal a lot about the planet's watery past was chosen after lengthy study.

Curiosity returned its first view of Mars - a wide-angle scene of rocky ground near the front of the rover. The rover is carrying a robotic arm, a drill, and a set of 10 science instruments including two colour video cameras.

More images are expected in the next several days as the mission blends observations of the landing site with activities to configure the rover for work and check the performance of its instruments and mechanisms, NASA said.

During a nearly two-year prime mission, Curiosity will investigate whether the region ever offered conditions favourable for microbial life.