As the Mars Curiosity entered the seven minutes of terror the NASA crew on ground were in a festive mood. When it was announced that the rover had hit the ground cheers rang out.

Watching the event via NASA feed it was tense in the command centre as audio was lost for a few minutes as the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory’s deployment to the surface of Mars took place. This was expected, as there is a seven minute delay because of the distance.

At 1:32 a.m. August 6, 2012 the group broke into hugs as it was announced that Curiosity was safely on Mars and that images were about to appear.

The first image to appear was:

The image was of the wheels down on Mars.