Dozens tweet about Mars Rover mission

HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) - Dozens of social media followers attended in-person meetings at Hampton's NASA Langley Research Center.

Angela Gibson of American Public University tweeted messages throughout the day to students, faculty and staff about what she heard and learned during the sessions.

William Ung, an aerospace engineer, made the trek from San Diego, to learn more about "Curiosity," the rover's name.

Complete coverage: Mars Rover Landing August 2012

"Its the size of a car. It weighs 2,000 pounds," Ung said. "So its very interesting to see how the entry, descent and landing takes place. Watching it go hypersonic into the atmosphere and land on the ground safely with a lot of things going on in the background. For that to happen is pretty cool."

Jennifer Andrews, a high school earth science teacher from the Richmond area also participated. She plans to take what she learned at NASA Langley about the Rover back to her classroom.

"They helped develop the parachute," Andrews said. "They do the wind tunnel testing. They're doing the atmospheric testing. They're gathering information that a lot of others are using as they're getting ready for future missions."

The mission costs $2.5 billion. NASA expects to receive signals if the landing was successful by about 1:30 a.m. EDT Monday.