Nasa to learn if $2.5bn Mars mission is a success

Or was there life on another planet? Nasa’s $2.5bn dream machine, the Mars Science Laboratory, aims to take the first steps toward finding out when it nears the surface of Mars this morning.

Scientists have found signs of water on the Red Planet, hinting that some form of life was once likely, even though Mars is now a dry place with a thin atmosphere, extreme winters, and dust storms.

Nasa said it would find out whether its Mars Science Laboratory and rover, Curiosity — designed to hunt for soil-based signatures of life and send back data to prepare for a future human mission — landed safely at 5.31am today.

That would be about 14 minutes after the touchdown actually happens due to the time it takes for spacecraft signals to travel from Mars to Earth.

As of late Saturday, the laboratory was approximately 420,039km from Mars, closing in at around 12,000km per hour.

“Curiosity remains in good health with all systems operating as expected,” Nasa said in a statement.

The nuclear-powered rover is the biggest ever built for planetary exploration — weighing in at one tonne, about the size of a small car — and carries a complex chemistry kit to zap rocks, drill soil, and test for radiation.

The landing is a daring and unprecedented man-oeuvre that involves penetrating the atmosphere at a speed of 21,200km per hour, slowing down with the help of a supersonic parachute, and dropping down gently with tethers from a rocket-powered sky crane.

“This is the most challenging landing we have ever attempted,” said Doug McCuistion, director of Nasa’s Mars Exploration Programme.

Two Nasa orbiters will be crossing overhead as the lander approaches the surface, and a third orbiter, operated by the European Space Agency, will also send data back to Earth.

“It gets scarier every day,” said Mr McCuistion, noting that only about 40% of past attempts by global space agencies to send spacecraft to Mars have succeeded.

“Can we do this? Yeah, I think we can do this. I am confident the team has done an amazing job,” he said.

“But that risk still exists. It is going to be tough.”

The landing site for the rover is a flat area known as Gale Crater, which lies near a mountain that scientists hope the rover will be able to climb in the search for sediment layers that could be up to a billion years old.

One potential factor of concern, the weather, appears to be co-operating after a nearby dust storm spotted days ago dissipated, deputy project scientist Ashwin Vasavada told reporters.

If the landing goes according to plan, Nasa hopes to have some low-resolution black and white images taken from cameras on the rear of the rover shortly after.

More images will follow in the coming days. Then, engineers on Earth will spend most of August remotely checking out systems on the vehicle.

Curiosity may start to roll for its first drive in September, with its first scoop samples expected late in the month and its first drilling attempt in October or November.

If the landing fails, Mr McCuistion vowed that Nasa would continue its efforts to explore Mars. “We will pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off,” he said.

“Human spirit gets driven by these kinds of challenges and these are the kinds of challenges that force us, drive us to explore. To explore our surroundings, to understand what is out there, and obviously look at ‘Are we alone?’”