8-6-12 (Minneapolis, MN)  --  An engineering team from the University of Minnesota was instrumental in helping develop the parachute that helped NASA's rover "Curiosity" land on Mars early this morning.  Professor Graham Candler says because the mass that landed on Mars is bigger than anything NASA had done before, the size of the parachute had to be increased and there were problems with that which needed to be overcome.  Candler says the planet's thin atmosphere is what makes it so challenging to land the rover on Mars.