Perseverance rover has successfully landed on Mars and sent back its first images kvia.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kvia.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Perseverance, a six-wheeled, SUV-sized vehicle with the most sophisticated robotic astrobiology lab ever launched and an experimental aerial drone aboard, is at the heart of the Mars 2020 mission. It blasted off in July on a 293-million-mile journey. And immediately got to work, taking a photo of its “forever home.”
The rover is starting its mission, exploring an ancient crater lake for signs of past life or in pieces strewn across the Martian landscape.
Hello, world. My first look at my forever home. #CountdownToMarspic.twitter.com/dkM9jE9I6X
Seven minutes of terror
Success depends on a nail-biting “seven minutes of terror” entry, descent and landing, or EDL, sequence that must be completed flawlessly and without intervention from Earth-bound engineers. Because Mars is so far away, it takes 11 minutes for signals to reach NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the mission is managed. That means that by the time engineers get a message from the s
NASA rover’s touchdown thrills Chinese netizens, ups zeal for Tianwen-1 landing
Deng Xiaoci Published: Feb 19, 2021 11:44 AM
Photo: twitter account of NASA s Perseverance Mars Rover
Dubbed the largest, most advanced rover the US space agency NASA has ever sent to another world, Perseverance nailed its safe landing at the preset site on Mars on Thursday, drawing a conclusion to its 203-day journey, covering more than 470 million kilometers from Earth.
The successful touchdown, which was announced at mission control at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California around Beijing time 5 am on Friday, immediately thrilled Chinese social media users, with the topic rocketing atop of China s microblogging giant Sina Weibo search list, gathering nearly 30 million views and more than 2,500 comments as of press time.