Mission controllers burst into applause and cheers as they received signals confirming

Mission controllers burst into applause and cheers as they received signals confirming that the car-sized rover had survived a perilous seven-minute descent NASA called the most elaborate and difficult feat in the annals of robotic spaceflight.

Engineers said the tricky landing sequence, combining a giant parachute with a rocket-pack that lowered the rover to the Martian surface on a tether, allowed for zero margin for error.

“I can’t believe this. This is unbelievable,” enthused Allen Chen, the deputy head of the rover’s descent and landing team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.

Moments later, Curiosity beamed back its first three images from the Martian surface, one of them showing a wheel of the vehicle and the rover’s shadow cast on the rocky terrain.

NASA put the official landing time of Curiosity, touted as the first full-fledged mobile science laboratory sent to a distant world, at 10:32 p.m. Pacific time (1:32 a.m. EDT/0532 GMT).

The landing marked a much-welcome success and a major milestone for a U.S. space agency beset by budget cuts and the recent cancellation of its space shuttle program, NASA’s centerpiece for 30 years.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity project, formally called the Mars Science Laboratory, is NASA’s first astrobiology mission since the 1970s-era Viking probes.

Obama himself issued a statement hailing the Curiosity landing as “an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future.”

“It proves that even the longest of odds are no match for our unique blend of ingenuity and determination,” he said.

Launched on November 26 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the robotic lab sailed through space for more than eight months, covering 352 million miles (566 million km), before piercing Mars’ thin atmosphere at 13,000 miles per hour — 17 times the speed of sound — and starting its descent.

hmmmm looking a little fake! You know, there are children & animals starving, citizens who can’t find jobs or pay their mortgage and disabled veterans who can’t receive appropriate healthcare on earth. Might want to use that money for something else, dontcha think?