Mars in a Minute: How Do You Land on Mars?

About this video

There's nothing easy about landing on Mars.

So how do you land on Mars when your spacecraft is going thousands of miles an hour, has to put up with the extreme heat of atmospheric entry and then reach the surface safely without crashing into it?

It seems there are a number of options depending on the size of your payload. This animated short from NASA looks at the range of clever methods used both in the past and for the upcoming curiosity landing.