I was so worried about jinxing this whole thing that I dared not blog about it before now. Phenomenal teamwork by everyone in NASA and JPL and elsewhere! The sense of relief is overwhelming!
I can't believe they got a picture of the parachute!
Even better!:
Late last night, in the morning hours of Aug. 6, as NASA's Curiosity rover fell to the surface of Mars, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured an image of the rover gliding on its parachute. The image was taken with the orbiter's High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.
Today, the MRO team located another object in this image -- not present in prior images of the same region -- which is the right size to be the rover's heat shield. The heat shield was ejected from the rover and its back shell before this image was taken. The team thinks the heat shield is still in free flight, because, if it were to have already hit the surface, it would have kicked up a dust cloud. The HiRISE image of NASA's Phoenix lander on its parachute also captured the heat shield in free fall. Other image products from the same observation are, or will be, at http://uahirise.org/releases/msl-descent.php .
Here is that famous "Seven Minutes Of Terror" video:
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