Assessment of the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing Simulation

On August 5, 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, successfully landed inside Gale Crater. This landing was only the seventh successful landing and fourth rover to be delivered to Mars. Weighing nearly one metric ton, Curiosity is the largest and most complex rover ever sent to investigate another planet. Safely landing such a large payload required an innovative Entry, Descent, and Landing system, which included the first guided entry at Mars, the largest supersonic parachute ever flown at Mars, and a novel and untested Sky Crane landing system. A complete, end-to-end, six degree-of-freedom, multi-body computer simulation of the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing sequence was developed at the NASA Langley Research Center. In-flight data gathered during the successful landing is compared to pre-flight statistical distributions, predicted by the simulation. These comparisons provide insight into both the accuracy of the simulation and the overall performance of the vehicle.