The Curiosity Has Landed! Traditional Cache

You're looking for a medium-sized painted lock 'n lock container. This "waypoint" cache is hidden at a fork in the road and maybe will entice you to follow the path less traveled to find another long-time resident Ministik cache further down the trail.

This 2012 cache commemorates the landing of a new rover on Mars: Curiosity. The method of landing this rover on Mars was very complex and took place during what project staff called "7 minutes of terror". Since it takes about 14 minutes for signals to be sent from Mars to Earth, they didn't know if the rover was deposited safely on the Mars surface until well after the event took place.

Well it was a success! Curiosity landed on Mars Sunday August 5, 2012 at 11:32 pm Edmonton time. As they were landing, they estimated they'd be about 232 m away from their projected landing spot. The cache is closer to where it's supposed to be: when I stopped averaging it was at 2.7 m estimated accuracy. Lucky you! :-)

Have fun finding the cache and walking the Ministik trails!