Macs Make a Cameo During Mars Curiosity Landing

The notion that Macs are useful just for art and design took it on the chin early Monday morning when NASA’s live feed of Mars Curiosity showed several Apple laptops in use during the rover’s final approach and landing on the red planet.

Macs played an important role in landing Curiosity on MarsMacs played an important role in landing Curiosity on Mars

Mission specialists had rows of MacBook Pro laptops up and running as they monitored the probe and the spacecraft that carried it to Mars. So many Macs, in fact, that seeing a lone ThinkPad in the mix seemed out of place.

And yes, those Macs were running OS XAnd yes, those Macs were running OS X

Of course, the bigger news is that NASA scientists and engineers designed and built a car-sized robotic rover and successfully sent it to Mars to conduct a series of experiments and gather data — but it also means the next time someone tells them Macs are for art, they can add “and dropping nuclear powered robots on Mars using rocket sky cranes.”

[Thanks to Reddit for the Curiosity landing team photos.]