The spacecraft transporting the Curiosity rover entered the Martian atmosphere at 1:10 a.m. EDT on August 6 after an eight-month journey. Because it takes 14 minutes to send or receive a signal from Mars, NASA operators could not communicate with the craft during its descent; they had to hope that their meticulously plotted engineering and software would, within "seven minutes of terror," slow the probe down from 13,000 miles per hour and gently and precisely deposit Curiosity at the selected landing site.