NASA has released a low-resolution video of the Curiosity rover during the final few minutes of its descent to the Martian surface.
This stop-motion video shows 297 frames from the Mars Descent Imager aboard NASA's Curiosity rover as it descended to the surface of Mars. These thumbnail images were received on Earth on Aug. 6, 2012, and cover the last two and a half minutes of descent.
The video showed the protective heat shield falling away as the rover plummeted through the Mars' atmosphere, and dust was being kicked up as it was lowered by cables inside a crater.
Curiosity successfully executed the new landing routine Sunday night and has since returned a flood of pictures.
The mission team is awaiting full-resolution frames of the descent - a process that would take some time. Once they're sent back, it'll be the first full glimpse of a spacecraft landing on another world.
