“After flying more than eight months and 350 million miles since launch, the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is now right on target to fly through the eye of the needle that is our target at the top of the Mars atmosphere,” said Mission Manager Arthur Amador of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Mars Science Laboratory and the Curiosity Rover is scheduled to land on Mars in less than 13 hours, close to Gale Crater at about 05:31 UTC on August 6, 2012 (for those needing a detailed timeline with time in both EST and UTC, here you go). If you haven’t seen the Curiosity’s Seven Minutes of Terror video, you should:

If you want to watch the landing (and by watch the landing, I mean watch a bunch of people look at computers), check out NASA JP’s Ustream feed, NASA TV’s special Mars Landing Page, or @MarsCuriosity on twitter. If you want super space-nerd commentary, go to the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Special Event Section on NASA Spaceflight.com.

Update:
Check out the control room when touchdown was confirmed: