> The detailed explanations and behind the scenes looks are really interesting, meeting such tiny piece of rock 400M km away is just crazy.
What makes this even more crazy is that the space craft cruised 31 months powered down, from Mars to beyond the orbit of Jupiter and then back. The precision required to accomplish this is tiny!
The mission controllers must have had a pretty good confidence before giving the ok to power down.
Huge accomplishment and magnificent engineering. Hats off to the guys in ESOC and other ESA facilities.