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So that is basically insane, but I do have to ask how many of those kinds of maneuvers have been tried before? I mean, they say they can't land the rover with rockets, so I assume they have used alternate methods before as well?

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The smaller rovers "bounced down" with airbags.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover#Airbags

For comparison, here is the similar video that they put out to describe the EDL system used by Spirit & Opportunity back in 2004. For some reason it was a mere 6 minutes of terror. I'm not sure what accounts for the discrepancy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij33yhdGn_g

Phoenix was also 7 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2ucH1PT4LQ

Maybe the retrorockets/sky crane in Phoenix/Curiosity (respectively) add a few seconds.

Thanks guys. It was neat to see what parts of the design (and the video) were reused from prior projects.

Here's a pretty good presentation on the design constraints of Curiosity. He answers the 6 vs 7 question about 27 minutes in: it's the guided-descent phase that gives the extra minute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q38AncYm2U

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