New movie shows the landing of Curiosity rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

If you want to get a feel for touching down on the Red Planet, look at a new movie thanks to NASA’s Curiosity rover mission.

The video covers the last two-and-a-half minutes before the rover touches down in Gale Crater. This movie is available courtesy of high-resolution frames acquired by the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI). It shows the jettison of the heat shield and touchdown, with the Sky Crane landing rockets blasting the Martian surface.

Also included, mission control audio can be heard, counting down the critical events to touchdown.

Give a look and listen by going to:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/videos/index.cfm?v=81

By Leonard David