That skycrane lowering the rover from a near hover and then blasting away on its thrusters is pretty epic, and took a lot of engineering confidence. Used also with the Curiosity rover, it's lot showier than bumping down in a ball of airbags like earlier efforts.
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| Curiosity descent illustration from Wikipedia |
Lots of oohing and aahing from the network anchors about the "sounds from Mars", which is just wind blowing across a mic and normally something networks pay money for gadgets to eliminate. I don't know what Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb thought they were going to hear. Thoat farts? Thark war cries?
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