Join other kurious kossacks tonight at SciTech as we live blog the Curiosity rover landing. The diary is scheduled to publish at 10:30 CDT. Join in the suspense as palantir and yours truly comment on the progress of the descent to the surface of Mars.
Wouldn't you love to race this puppy around on Mars from the comfort or your sofa?
The rover has a top speed on flat, hard ground of about 1.5 inches (4 cm) per second. However, under autonomous control with hazard avoidance, the vehicle achieves an average speed of less than half that. The rover was designed and built to be capable of driving more than 12 miles (more than 20 km) during the prime mission. And, this model is nuclear powered. No big solar panels to get dusty and degrade performance.
Here is summary of the tricky bits packed into a short one minute video. It's nail-biting time.