Hasta La Gadget!

The new (and recently renamed) Mars rover Curiosity will get the largest heat shield ever crafted for a probe bound for the red planet, Space.com reports–a fitting device for a vehicle the size of a car.

“The Mars Science Laboratory aeroshell is the most complex capsule to fly to Mars,” said Rich Hund, program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., in the article. “The design had to address the large size and weight of the rover, the largest ever sent to Mars, and the requirement for landing at a more-precise point on Mars.”

The rover’s heat shield and conical backshell together make up its 15-foot wide aero shell, the report said. That’s not only larger than the 8.5-foot shields that surrounded the current NASA Spirit and Opportunity rovers, but also larger than the 13-foot shell used for manned Apollo missions to the moon.

Curiosity is currently set for a fall 2011 launch.