This image from early October 2008 shows personnel working on the descent
stage of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory inside the Spacecraft Assembly
Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
The descent stage will provide rocket-powered deceleration for a phase of
the arrival at Mars after the phases using the heat shield and parachute.
When it nears the surface, the descent stage will lower the rover on a
bridle the rest of the way to the ground. The larger three of the orange
spheres in the descent stage are fuel tanks. The smaller two are tanks for
pressurant gas used for pushing the fuel to the rocket engines.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the
Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate,
Washington.