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There will be some nervous souls in San Diego Thursday when NASA’s $3 billion rover Perseverance attempts to land on Mars. The descent will be so wild the space agency is describing it as “seven minutes of terror.”
One of the rover’s descent cameras was built by Malin Space Science Systems of Sorrento Valley, which also provided four other cameras for Perseverance, including imagers that will look for past signs of life.
“We going to help Perseverance find good places to land and avoid the bad ones,” said Mike Ravine, advanced projects manager at MSSS, which has about 80 employees.
Spark up a love for space in your child at this landmark moment in UAE history
1 of 17 FIRSTLY, WHAT IS THE HOPE PROBE?: The Hope probe is an unmanned spacecraft equipped with several scientific instruments that the UAE has sent up into space to study the planet Mars. Image Credit: AFP
2 of 17 WHAT WILL IT DO? It will collect scientific data on the Red Planet’s atmosphere and weather, to help discover whether there could have ever been real-life Martians living there – or if there might even be life forms living there now! Image Credit:
3 of 17 HOW BIG IS IT? The main body of the Hope probe is about the size of a large car or van like you might see on Sheikh Zayed Road. With its solar panels open it measures 3 metres by 7.9 metres.