NASA Spacecraft Aiming for August Landing

I just discovered an online news article about a recent NASA aircraft that recently launched in November and is on course for a landing on Mars.  Here is a brief summary.

The NASA spacecraft is named "Curiosity" and engineers are closely monitoring the ship's course since launching.  The total length of the flight is 352 million miles to Mars, therefore, the firing of Curiosity is the most crucial part of the procedure, due to its long distance to travel.  This mission is costing NASA $2.5 billion therefore it is important that Curiosity makes it safely to Mars.  Since launching, Curiosity travelled 80 million miles at a speed of 10,200 mph!  Wow!

Curiosity's mission is to land on a 96 mile wide crater near the equator of Mars which contains a towering muntain in the center.  The plan is to land in the lower parts of the crater to examine soil deposits in hopes of determining whether or not the area had/has living conditions for microbial life.  Curiosity includes many features and instruments, including a laser to zap into bedrock along with a jackhammer, making it more sophisticated than previous Mars spacecrafts.  Even though it has more tools, it will not be able to detect life.  As an alternative, it will search for the chemical building blocks that are responsible for sustaining life during the 2 years it will be on Mars.

In order for Curiosity to safely land on the planet's surface, NASA is testing out a new type of landing using a sky crane system because the spacecraft is too heavy to use airbags.  This method allows a parachute to detach while a rocket-powered platform fires its engines to lower it to the ground on a rope.  This is similar to a hovering helicopter lowering huge loads at the end of a cable.
Curiosity's trip sharply contrasts with another spacecraft, who's aim is at Phobos, the moon of Mars.  This Russian probe was launched weeks earlier than Curiosity but got stranded in Earth's orbit and pieces were expected to fall back to Earth this weekend.

Hopefully Curiosity's mission is successful and we can receive good news in the future!
Care to learn more about Curiosity? Click the link below, it's pretty epic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1coV7XqE1M&feature=plcp&context=C34c06fdUDOEgsToPDskLD71BH3obG7oFTd3hOwxn6