Simulated Curiosity

I am loving this video simulating the new Mars rover’s abilities. They are going for a way more sophisticated landing technique than the airbag approach of Spirit and Opportunity, which will be exciting to see if it works – it also looks like there is more that could go wrong, just from the complexity. Curiosity is a way more anthropomoric-ible rover, which is adorable. I did laugh when they show Curiosity finally on the surface of Mars and then the voiceover says, “the descent stage cuts the rover loose and flies away”, while the descent stage zooms off over some distant hills to…. crash somewhere? Hopefully take some pictures along the way, or maybe scope out from closer to the surface where Curiosity might want to go? There are plenty of useful things it might go do depending on the range left in it, but the video makes it sound like it is flying away home – it is pretty funny, to me at least.