NASA’s normally quiet Jet Propulsion Laboratory erupted with whoops of delight and rounds of applause as the Mars Curiosity Rover touched down successfully on the Martian surface.

After a nine month journey the spacecraft carrying the rover arrived at the red planet, hurtling into its atmosphere at 13,000 miles per hour (21,000 km per hour). There was nothing more NASA scientists could do as on board computers took complete control. The craft performed a series of complex manoeuvres as it hurtled towards the ground before firing its retrorockets in order to slow it down, then finally using its sky crane to gently lower the rover onto the surface.

With so much that could have gone wrong scientist at NASA’s JPL were both delighted and relieved. The success was announced to the world through the rover’s Twitter feed, proclaiming “I’m safely on the surface of Mars”.

The rover landed in the Gale Crater and will begin searching for signs of previous habitable conditions. The mission is initially pencilled in to last for two years but like previous rover missions is likely to last far longer. Instead of using solar power the Curiosity Rover will rely on its plutonium generators for energy, it’s thought they could keep the rover going for well over a decade.

The rover is the largest, heaviest and the most advanced “science laboratory” to be sent to Mars and it’s hoped its equipment, including a laser that will fire into rocks, will reveal the planet’s past.

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