Michael Malin must be elated. Finally, after having to wait for over a decade, his descent camera grabbed the images while a spacecraft was landing on Mars.
Michael had a MARDI (Mars Descent Image) on the Phoenix lander too, but that was never turned on as NASA had feared that the MARDI snapping pictures would overload the computer of Phoenix while it was also handling the landing of Phoenix. Michael had descent cameras designed for other missions that never flew. Apparently 5th time is the charm in this case as on Sunday the MARDI did tape how Curiosity was landing in Gale Crater.
This is what the last 2.5 minutes of approaching Mars on hyperspeed and slowing down within 7 minutes to zero looks like.
Later this week the image that represents the landing area best will be downloaded to Earth in high resolution as the planning team will use that for plotting out the first traverse of Curiosity over her landing neighbourhood.
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