NASA Has Plenty to Celebrate After Mars Rover Curiosity's Perfect Landing
Celebration After a Perfect Landing Members of the Mars Science Laboratory team in the MSL Mission Support Area react after learning the the Curiosity rover has landed safely on Mars. NASA/JPLObama calls it a proud moment for the space program and the country PASADENA, Calif. -- Long minutes of thunderous applause greeted the managers and engineers who paraded into an auditorium here Sunday night, triumphant after a perfect landing on another world. The Mars rover Curiosity sent a picture from the Martian surface just moments after its self-piloted descent and airdrop, and everyone assembled at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory could not help but cheer. It's a huge moment for NASA, which delivered the rover over budget and two years late -- but delivered it, and beautifully. Nothing is harder than landing on Mars, and no one does it better than the United States, said Charles Bolden, NASA's administrator. In a...