After eight months of travel in space and 570 million kilometers – or 1,500 times the distance from Earth to the Moon – The robot Curiosity should land on Mars on Monday at 7:31 (5:31 GMT) in the Gale Crater, near Mount Sharp (5000 m). Launched November 26, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the spacecraft exploration of NASA is the largest (900 kg) and the most advanced ever sent into space. Powered by a nuclear generator, it is supposed to work for two years (one Martian year) during which he will attempt to discover whether the Martian environment could be conducive to de ; development of life, even in microbial form that.

The mission of the robot is perilous. Between its entry into the Martian atmosphere and landing on the surface of the planet, seven minutes will pass. "Seven minutes of terror", according to NASA, because "if something does not work, it's game over!" Says one engineer in a video released by the agency U.S. space. Main challenge: slow the craft, very heavy, while the atmosphere of Mars opposes hundred times less resistance than that of Earth. After dropping the heat shield, supersonic parachute diameter of 21 meters will be deployed on time and to increase the speed of the module from 21 243 to 2.74 km / h.

Mild weather

Scientists will have to wait 14 minutes – the time that the signal travels the distance between Mars and Earth – to see if everything went well. But it could also take several days for bad positioning of the robot or three sensors (two American, one European) in orbit around the Red Planet.

"Every day that passes is more scary," admits Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA, noting that 40% of past attempts to send robots to Mars have been crowned are successful. The United States is the only country that has explored the Red Planet, and five of their probes have already reached the Martian soil.

For now, the weather looks pretty good near the crater Gale. "Mars is friendly to us, we will have good conditions for Sunday," said Saturday, one of the scientists in charge of the project, Ashwin Vasavada. A dust storm spotted a few days ago has dissipated, giving way to a "cloud […] Benin enough," he said.

Visit this page on Monday morning from 6:45 Paris time, to watch the landing live Curiosity: