Initial images are already being received from the Martian surface, which at the moment are showing a lot of dust in the air due to the work of the rocket nozzles used to support the sky crane.
Landing on Mars can be a tricky thing, as NASA has discovered in the past, and while there certainly have been stunning successes with previous rover missions, everyone's curious as to whether the latest rover, called Curiosity, will land safely, too.
Over half of all missions by both the Russians and Americans have ended in failure; in fact six missions never even made it to earth-orbit.
The Curiosity Rover has already travelled an amazing 352 million miles, or 567 million kilometres, something which would certainly give you a hefty number of Frequent Flyer points, and it has taken a good 36 weeks to get there.
The landing was extremely precise, ensuring the rover touched down in Mars' Gale Crater at 3.31pm AEST, Monday August 6, which is 1.31am EDT Aug 6 in the US (for those on the East Coast), and 10.31pm PDT Aug 5 for those on the US West coast.
NASA reports that its scientists decided not to take up the option of a "final course correction" manoeuvre, presumably they were happy with the effects of earlier course corrections.
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However, you won't be able to watch via the browser on iPads, iPhones or iPad Touch, without downloading the free NASA TV app to watch via those iDevices.
Android devices running Android OS 2.2 and up with Flash should be able to watch via the browser, but the Nexus 7 in its native form does not have Flash.
In its final approach, the craft entered Mars' atmosphere at over 20,000km/hr with just 7 minutes to decelerate to rest.
Initially a series of S-shaped curves were flown in an attempt to have atmospheric friction slow the vessel. At around 450km/hr, a high-velocity parachute was deployed to bring the lander close to the surface.
Finally came the most amazing step. A "sky crane" complete with rocket nozzles took over and carefully lowered the package to within about 10m of the surface. At that point, it hovered and lowered the rover on cables to the surface. Once done, the crane disconnected and flew off to the side to crash into the planet's surface; no longer required.
Being in the best location, Australian tracking facilities will be receiving all of the signals from the craft and were able to report the success of the mission.
As we said, all of this with a 14 minute delay - that's how long it takes for light to travel the current direct line between the Earth and Mars; this of course means that the entire process has to be carried out autonomously - a 28-minute round trip is hardly the way to operate a remote control!
Currently, we have not seen any indication of Valentine Michael Smith in the early images, nor indeed from the previous missions, but evidence of his time on the planet is sure to be found.
