Seven Minutes of Terror to Precede NASA Mars Landing
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The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is aiming to find out whether life forms can survive on Mars. First, they need to pull off a successful landing of a 1-ton rover named Curiosity.
The vehicle, loaded with the most-sophisticated instruments ever used to explore another world, is scheduled to touch down Aug. 6 at about 1:30 a.m. New York time. If successful, the $2.5 billion mission is expected by scientists to return a trove of data on the geology of a planet that’s been shrouded in myth.