Seven minutes of terror
Landing on Mars takes about seven minutes, all done automatically because radio signals take too long to reach Earth. Heat shield, parachute and rockets each remove part of a huge speed.
Cruise stage separates
After seven months in space, the cruise stage that carried the craft from Earth is dropped. Only the sealed aeroshell with the rover inside continues.
Atmospheric entry
At about 125 km altitude and 20,000 km/h the capsule hits the thin air. The heat shield glows at around 1,300 °C as drag removes about 90% of the speed.
Parachute
At about 11 km a huge supersonic parachute opens. Soon after, the heat shield drops away so radar and cameras can see the ground and pick a safe spot.
Sky crane
Near 2 km the descent stage leaves the backshell and fires its rocket engines. Hovering about 20 m up, it lowers the rover on cables.
Touchdown
The rover lands on its wheels at walking pace inside the landing ellipse. The cables are cut and the sky crane flies away to crash far off.