Originally Posted by
Alextanium
They build the landers with complete autonomy in mind - they fly and land themselves.
The entire landing sequence takes 7 minutes from start to finish, but the time it takes for light to get from Earth to Mars is 10 minutes. By the time we got the signal that it had started its entry, it would have been over 3 minutes already.
Also, they're receiving telemetry from the craft every step of the way: just on a 10 minute delay. They're still 'seeing' the craft land, just not in real time.
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