Traveling at 13,000 mph, the Mars rover Curiosity has seven minutes to get from the top of the atmosphere to the surface of the red planet - and if one thing goes wrong, it's "game over."
NASA has produced a video, "Seven Minutes of Terror," which explains how the descent will work. You can .
The big challenge for JPL is that Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as the previous rovers sent to Mars, so slowing it down is an feat of engineering.
For those who want to see how Curiosity will get down to the Mars, check out the above photos and captions for JPL's detailed explanation of each phase of the descent.
Curiosity is the most technologically advanced rover ever built, according to JPL's website. The purpose of the mission is to determine whether the planet ever was, or is, habitable to microbial life. The rover features 76 pyrotechnic devices and a supersonic parachute.
