How do spacecraft slow down enough to land on Mars?
Quick Answer
They use a heat shield, parachutes, and retrorockets, because Mars has enough atmosphere to create drag but not enough to rely on parachutes alone. Landing on Mars is one of the hardest tasks in spaceflight.
The Full Story
A Mars lander or rover hits the atmosphere at very high speed, so it must shed most of that energy before touchdown. First, a heat shield protects the vehicle from intense heating during atmospheric entry. Next, a parachute deploys to reduce speed further, but Mars’s thin atmosphere limits how much drag it can provide. In the final phase, retrorockets or a sky crane system slow the craft for a soft landing, as used by NASA’s Curiosity rover in 2012 and Perseverance in 2021. This sequence is often called the entry, descent, and landing, or EDL, system.
Key Facts
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"How do you land a rover at 20,000 mph on a planet with almost no air?"