The Perseverance rover touched down successfully in Jezero crater on Mars at 3:55 pm ET, on Thursday 18th February.
How did Perseverance land?
After a seven-month journey from Earth, Perseverance began its seven-minute descent through the Martian atmosphere. Its parachute slowed Perseverance down before the rocket-powered “sky crane” lowered the rover to the ground on four tethers. As touchdown was confirmed, the team in mission control erupted into (mostly) socially-distanced celebration. Within minutes, the first image from Perseverance was received, a black-and-white photograph taken by one of the rover’s hazard cameras.
Landing on Mars is not easy, but this was NASA’s ninth successful landing on the Red Planet. Steve Jurczyk, Acting Administrator of NASA, said at JPL’s post-landing press conference: “When I heard the touchdown signal come back and saw the first image… I cannot tell you how overcome with emotion I was.”
Over the weekend following Perseverance’s landing, the team started performing checks of the rover’s systems and scientific instruments. Perseverance continued to transmit photographs, videos, and audio back to JPL via the Deep Space Network.
What did the landing look (and sound) like?
For the first time, engineers at JPL equipped the descent stage and rover with video cameras and a microphone to record the historic landing. NASA released the extraordinary footage of the landing during its press conference on Monday 22nd. The video showed separation of the heat shield which protects the rover during its initial descent, deployment of the parachute to slow the rover, and separation and firing of the descent stage. One of the most impressive clips shows the descent stage flying away after lowering Perseverance to Mars’s surface. While the microphone didn’t record audio during descent, it switched on at the surface and recorded the first ever sound from Mars.
What is Perseverance doing now?
The team at JPL continues to check Perseverance’s systems and scientific instruments, preparing the rover for its astrobiology objectives: to search for signs of ancient microbial life. Perseverance is sending a flood of raw images back to Earth. Six of the photographs taken by Perseverance’s Navcams were stitched together to make the first 360-degree panorama of Jezero crater. In addition, Perseverance has been charging the batteries of Ingenuity, the helicopter which will make the first attempt at powered flight on another planet.
Perseverance’s mission will help us to understand Mars, to learn about its evolution and whether it once harboured life. But it is also a major step along the way in preparing for human missions to Mars.
