General Question How did Curiosity land！？

[769270865]

From the mission animation,that when Curiosity leve earth it don't have a rocket any more,is there no MCC at all?Or all MCC are done use translation?
When it enconter Mars,it have a escape speed for Mars,So how it slow downed?ALL by aero break?I mean it is posible for slow down for a direct enter with out overheating"?

 

[garyw]

Like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4YqNoLkmxE

 

[ADSWNJ]

The cruise stage had 8 hydrazine thusters, per NASA here:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/spacecraft/cruiseconfig/

They planned for 6 MCC's and executed 5 (one was canceled because they were so accurate). They didn't need the big eject stage, but of course they needed to be able to tune the entry to the aerobrake "7 mins of terror" to make sure it landed where they wanted.

 

[Axertan]

If you have Unity player installed, you can watch a 3-D simulation
http://eyes.nasa.gov/launch2.html?document=$SERVERURL/content/documents/msl/edl.xml
(links to Nasa's Eyes on the Solar System app)