© The Associated Press/The Huntsville Times/ Eric Schultz
U.S. Space and Rocket Center educators Shannon Lampton and Charlene Pittman cheer at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center as as they watch NASA's Mars Curiosity rover land , on Aug. 6, 2012 in Huntsville, Ala.
Pasadena, California - In a show of technological wizardry, the robotic explorer Curiosity blazed through the pink skies of Mars, steering itself to a gentle landing inside a giant crater for the most ambitious dig yet into the Red Planet's past.

Cheers and applause echoed through the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory late Sunday after the most high-tech interplanetary rover ever built signaled it had survived a harrowing plunge through the thin Mars atmosphere.

"Touchdown confirmed," said engineer Allen Chen. "We're safe on Mars."


The extraterrestrial feat injected a much-needed boost to NASA, which is debating whether it can afford another Mars landing this decade. At a budget-busting $2.5 billion, Curiosity is the priciest gamble yet, which scientists and government officials hope will pay off with a bonanza of discoveries.

"We are the only country that has ever done anything like this," boasted John Holdren, the senior advisor to President Obama on science and technology issues, who was in the JPL control room as Curiosity touched down. "Many new technologies had to work in perfect synchronization."

mars rover
© The Associated Press/NASA/JPL-Caltech
This is one of the first images taken by NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5, 2012 PDT.
President Obama called the landing "an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future." In a statement, he added that the landing "parallels" the new path of partnering with American companies to send more astronauts into space on American spacecrafts. The plan will hopefully save taxpayer dollars while still allowing NASA to do the innovative research they have always done.

Minutes after the landing signal reached Earth at 10:32 p.m. PT, Curiosity beamed back the first black-and-white pictures from inside the crater showing its wheel and its shadow, cast by the afternoon sun.

"We landed in a nice flat spot. Beautiful, really beautiful," said engineer Adam Steltzner, who led the team that devised the tricky landing routine.

It was NASA's seventh landing on Earth's neighbor; many other attempts by the U.S. and other countries to zip past, circle or set down on Mars have gone awry.