NASA’s largest and most advanced unmanned Mars-exploration robot, the Mars Curiosity Rover, has successfully begun the first part of its 13-part landing phase on Mars: cruise-stage separation. The landing craft portion is traveling about 3.6 miles per second (5.9 km) and is just about 6 minutes away from entering the Martian atmosphere.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=158778