It Worked!

The crazy-looking but boldly elegant skycrane design worked perfectly, neatly and precisely discarding bits of the spacecraft the moment they were no longer needed, all the way down to the Martian surface. The cruise stage and balance weights were jettisoned outside the atmosphere, then the heat shield, entry balance weights, parachute and backshell, and then finally the skycrane itself.



We can now land a one ton rover on the Martian surface, with much greater precision than ever before.