Why NASA had to invent a robotic jetpack to land a car

Science · Published 17 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: The Curiosity rover was too heavy for traditional Martian landing methods. To prevent the SUV-sized craft from smashing into the surface, engineers had to develop a daring new maneuver: a robotic jetpack that lowered the rover to the ground on nylon ropes before flying away to a crash site.

The Curiosity rover, part of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, represented a massive leap in scale for planetary exploration. At roughly 10 feet long and 9 feet wide, it was significantly larger than its predecessors. This size created a physics problem: it was too heavy to be safely deployed using the airbag system used for the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission. That older method involved a lander dangling from a parachute, inflating giant airbags to bounce across the surface and come to a halt. However, that technique limited landing sites to specific areas where engineers could guarantee the airbags wouldn't puncture or roll uncontrollably.

To overcome these limitations, NASA developed the 'sky crane' maneuver for Curiosity's landing on August 5, 2012. This multi-stage descent began with the atmosphere slowing the craft from 13,000 mph to 2,000 mph, followed by a parachute reducing the speed to 200 mph. A powered-descent stage then took over, lowering the rover to just 21 feet above the surface. At that point, the rover was suspended by nylon ropes while the 'jetpack' flew away to perform a controlled crash landing elsewhere.

This technology provided the precision needed to land in Gale Crater, where Curiosity has spent over 14 years studying geology and searching for signs of past life. The rover has already drilled 42 holes to collect rock samples, including a discovery of organic compounds that researchers suggest cannot be fully explained by non-biological processes. The success of the sky crane was so significant that it was refined with terrain relative navigation for the 2021 Perseverance landing, allowing for even more precise touchdowns in hazardous terrain.

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