7 Minutes of Terror: Curiosity Rover's Risky Mars Landing | Video
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as a gripping look at how hard Mars entry, descent and landing is.
What it is
NASA's animated explanation of the Curiosity rover's Mars landing, which relied on a complex automated sequence taking about seven minutes. It features NASA engineers discussing the risks before the 2012 landing.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2017 to 2021.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec niftich · 2017-08 · on “Water Found Deep Inside the Moon”
For a dramatic coverage of this exact subject, I highly recommend 'Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror' [1] from NASA JPL. [1] [LINK] or on Youtube: [this video]
Strong rec perryizgr8 · 2020-06 · on “NASA rushing to complete Mars launch before planet moves out of range”
> Oh, it has to land like the Falcon 9 as well, except hovering and lowering itself on a tether, like the Air Cav for Mars. Here's a video that blows my mind every time I watch it. [this video] Such a complicated landing sequence, and needs to work correctly the first time, all autonomously. And it worked!
Recommends rossdavidh · 2021-01 · on “NASA's Curiosity rover: 3k days on Mars”
Somewhat over-the-top but still cool discussion of this by actual NASA tech folks, made before the landing actually happened: [this video]
Cites sathackr · 2018-11 · on “How to Land on Mars”
1. About 6 months [LINK] 2. Out of ~50 missions, about 20 have failed. [LINK] 3. About 8 successful landings [LINK] Curiousity was by far the 'coolest' and still astonishes me that we pulled it off. [this video] 4. No.