NASA's car-size Curiosity rover is days away from its high-stakes landing on Mars, and a host of planned events will allow people to follow along as the spacecraft makes its thrilling journey to the surface of the Red Planet.

After traveling through space for about 8.5 months, Curiosity (also called the Mars Science Laboratory) is scheduled to touch down on Mars on Aug. 5 at 10:31 p.m. PDT (1:31 a.m. EDT Aug. 6; 0531 GMT).

The rover will descend to the surface attached to a rocket-powered sky crane, which will be used to slow the spacecraft's speed from more than 13,000 miles per hour (21,000 kilometers per hour) to zero as it flies through the Martian atmosphere. This unprecedented landing is so complex that it has been nicknamed "the seven minutes of terror."

"The Curiosity landing is the hardest NASA robotic mission ever attempted in the history of exploration of Mars, or any of our robotic exploration," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science missions, said in a recent news briefing.

Curiosity is equipped with a suite of 10 instruments to investigate whether Mars is, or ever was, a suitable place to host microbial life. The rover's nail-biting landing on Mars, coupled with its intriguing mission, could garner wide interest in the $2.5 billion endeavor, NASA officials said. [Photos: How Mars Rover Curiosity's Landing Works]

It also helps that the high-profile landing happens to fall during a time when more people, particularly students, are able to pay close attention, Grunsfeld said.

"Given that we are in the heart of summer, there's a real opportunity to achieve tremendous broad public engagement on this adventure on Mars," he said.

NASA is planning a host of events for educational outreach and to build awareness about the mission among the public.

"We're going to engage summer camps, science centers, our NASA centers," Grunsfeld said. "In fact, all around the world, people will be following the Mars Science Laboratory landing and the subsequent adventures of the Curiosity rover."

The agency is hosting its first-ever multi-center social media event tomorrow (Aug. 3). The simulcast event will connect seven NASA centers, including the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., the mission control epicenter for the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

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NASA Marking Historic Mars Rover Landing with Flurry of Events