SUCCESS! NASA’s Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars

NASA’s Perseverance Rover successfully landed on Mars after a less than 10-minute descent from space that began just before 4 p.m. EST Thursday.

In a post-landing briefing, NASA shared a “you are here” map showing the location where Perseverance landed:

Video of the Landing

The rover launched in July of 2020 and has since then been floating towards Mars where NASA hoped land it inside the Jezero crater.

The Perseverance mission is focused on gathering core samples from Mars so that a future mission can collect and return them to Earth for analysis. Scientists hope to gather enough information to determine if life once existed on the red planet.

The craft, after ditching its spaceflight systems, first used aerobraking, friction from the Martian atmosphere, to slow itself, then deployed a parachute, dropped its heat shield, and navigate itself to a safe landing spot where a retro-rocket-powered sky crane lowered the rover to the surface.

Then Perseverence will begin its search for ancient life on Mars.

The vehicle also includes the Ingenuity helicopter rover which is being used to test the concept of remote rover flight on another planet.

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