NASA has confirmed the rover Curiosity has landed on Mars. Its descent-stage retrorockets fired, guiding it to the surface.

Nylon cords lowered the rover to the ground in the "sky crane" maneuver. When the spacecraft sensed touchdown, the connecting cords were severed, and the descent stage flew out of the way.

The time of day at the landing site is about 3 pm local Mars time at Gale Crater. The landing marks the beginning of a two-year prime mission to investigate one of the most intriguing places on Mars.

NASA's most high-tech Mars rover zeroed in on the red planet where it attempted a tricky celestial gymnastics routine during "seven minutes of terror'' to plummet through the atmosphere.

The Curiosity rover was poised to hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at 21,000km/h. It was slowly lowered by cables inside a massive crater in the final few seconds.

NASA was ready for the "Super Bowl of planetary exploration,'' said Doug McCuistion, head of the Mars exploration program at NASA headquarters. "We score and win or we don't score and we don't win,'' said McCuistion.

Mission control at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory was expected to hear a signal at 3.31pm.

The Parkes telescope in rural NSW - which was pivotal in the Apollo Moon landing in 1969 - is one of the sites receiving radio signals which reveals whether the landing had been a success. An antenna in Perth is also being deployed.

NASA's Sami Asmar, who is monitoring the landing from Parkes, said the landing of a very large rover onto the surface of another world, another planet was "complicated and many things can go wrong and NASA acknowledges that," he told the ABC.

Space fans gathered at a major deep space communications centre near Canberra to await the touchdown of Curiosity on the surface of Mars.

The Deep Space Communications Complex at Tidbinbulla, about 40km from the national capital, is playing a key role in the mission. It will be the first station in NASA's deep space network to receive signals from the rover after it lands.

Curiosity was launched to study whether the Martian environment ever had conditions suitable for microbial life.  The voyage to Mars took over eight months and spanned 566 million kilometres. The trickiest part of the journey? The landing. Because Curiosity weighs nearly a ton, engineers drummed up a new and more controlled way to set the rover down.

The last Mars rovers, twins Spirit and Opportunity, were cocooned in air bags and bounced to a stop in 2004. The plans for Curiosity called for a series of braking tricks, similar to those used by the space shuttle, and a supersonic parachute to slow it down. Next: Ditch the heat shield used for the fiery descent.

And in a new twist, engineers came up with a way to lower the rover by cable from a hovering rocket-powered backpack. At touchdown, the cords cut and the rocket stage crashes a distance away.

Curiosity's goal: To scour for basic ingredients essential for life, including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur and oxygen. It's not equipped to search for living or fossil microorganisms. To get a definitive answer, a future mission needs to fly Martian rocks and soil back to Earth to be examined by powerful laboratories.

【新闻快讯】

法新社消息，据地面控制中心发回的消息，美国航空航天局耗资25亿美元打造的“好奇号”火星车刚才已经顺利登陆火星。此前它向地面发回首个信号。美国有线电视新闻网画面显示，美国宇航局工作人员正在击掌相庆。

人类是否宇宙中唯一的智能生命体？其他星球上还有没有生命？随着美国航天局火星科学实验室耗资25亿美元的火星探测器“好奇”号登陆火星，关于生命体的探索也将逐渐揭开谜底。　

经过254天的太空飞行，美国“好奇”号火星探测器于美国东部时间8月6日1时31分（北京时间13时31分）登陆火星，在“盖尔”陨石坑内中心山丘的一处山脚下着陆。“好奇”号顺利着陆后，将展开为期一个火星年(约687个地球日)的探测，其主要任务是查明火星过去或现在是否存在适宜生命存在的环境。　　

由于信号中转原因，“好奇”号着陆的信号最快也要在14分钟后才能传递到地面控制中心。所以，即使在控制中心也无法看到“好奇”号登陆的实时画面。届时位于纽约时报广场的LED显示屏将直播“好奇”号火星探测器登陆火星的全过程，与此同时，人们还可以登录NASA官网观看网络直播。　　

美国航天局副局长约翰·格伦斯菲尔德7月31日表示：“历史上很多重大新闻事件都让人联想到时报广场，我认为没有比时报广场更好的地方庆祝这一发生在火星上的重大事件。”　然而登陆并非轻而易举，任何差错都可能导致此前的努力化为泡影。　　

“恐怖7分钟”就是从“好奇”号抵达火星大气层顶部的那一刻开始，直到降落到火星表面为止，将耗时7分钟。在这短短的7分钟内，“好奇”号将穿过厚达128千米的火星大气层，承受高达约2400摄氏度的高温，如果“好奇”号没有被烧毁，它还必须在准确的时间张开降落伞，并打开8个火箭引擎，让降落速度从2.1万千米/小时降至0。但是，此前所有成功接触到了火星大气的11次火星任务中，有5次由于在进入大气层、下降和着陆阶段出现故障而失败，这也是为什么工程师们将这个阶段称为“恐怖7分钟”的原因。