PASADENA, Calif.Hurtling ever closer to Mars, NASA's most high-tech interplanetary rover prepared for the riskiest part of its journey: diving through the Martian atmosphere and pulling off a new landing routine.

Nerves will be on overdrive Sunday night as the Curiosity rover attempts a dizzying "seven minutes of terror" routine that ends with it being lowered by cables inside a massive crater if all goes according to script.

Hours before the 10:31 p.m. PDT planned touchdown, Curiosity was in excellent health and speeding toward the top of Mars' thin atmosphere.

"We're having a very clean ride right now. It's a little spooky," said Allen Chen, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the $2.5 billion mission.

Not ones to tempt fate, flight controllers planned to break out the "good luck" peanuts before Curiosity takes the plunge as part of a long-running tradition.

One scientist who can relate to the building anxiety is Cornell University planetary scientist Steve Squyres, who headed NASA's last successful rover mission in 2004.

This time around, Squyres has a supporting role and planned to view the landing with other researchers in the "science bullpen."

"Landing on Mars is always a nerve-racking thing. You're never going to get relaxed about something like landing a spacecraft on Mars," said Squyres.

Sunday's touchdown attempt was especially intense because NASA is testing a brand new landing technique. There's also extra pressure because budget woes have forced NASA to rejigger its Mars exploration roadmap.

"There's nothing in the pipeline" beyond the planned launch of a Mars orbiter in 2013, said former NASA Mars czar Scott Hubbard, who teaches at Stanford University.

Continued here:

NASA braces for "7 minutes of terror" Mars plunge