Mars landing radar.-

Photo By NASA.

A NASA Dryden Flight Research Center F/A-18 852 aircraft makes a 40-degree dive toward Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., during June 2011 flight tests of a Mars landing radar. A test model of the landing radar for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission is inside a pod under the aircraft's left wing.

A series of test flights on the F/A-18 simulated what the radar on the Mars Science Laboratory descent stage will see while the spacecraft is on a parachute descending through the Martian atmosphere. Earlier tests, with a helicopter carrying the test radar, simulated the lower-altitude portion of the spacecraft's descent to the surface of Mars.