The sky crane that landed Curiosity on Mars

In celebration of the Mars rover Curiosity's fantastic first year of operations, here's a look back at a series of posts I did on the unusual, risky, but successful sky crane technology used to deliver the robot to the surface of the Red Planet. In "NASA's sky crane over Mars" for SmartPlanet, I discussed how the sky crane maneuver would work and why such an unorthodox way of landing was necessary. "Satisfying Curiosity: preparing for the Mars landing" was a primer on that same subject I wrote for PLOS BLOGS just before the descent, including a review of where Curiosity would go and what exactly it would be doing to explore the planet. And in "Why the sky crane isn't the future for Mars landings," I offer an opinion about why we're not likely to see many repeat performances by that technology even though it performed beautifully. (Nothing I've heard since publishing that piece has given me reason to reconsider.)