In Pics: World lauds as NASA's Perseverance rover makes historic Mars landing, know what's next
"This landing is one of those pivotal moments for NASA, the US, and space exploration globally -- when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks," said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk. The mission itself personifies the human ideal of persevering towards the future and will help us prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet," Jurczyk said in a statement.
Perseverance
NASA's largest and most advanced Mars rover, Perseverance, successfully touched down on the Martian surface on Friday, in a nail-biting landing that marks its first step in the search for signs of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet. "Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking signs of past life," Indian-American flight controller Swati Mohan announced, prompting her colleagues at NASA to fist-bump and break into celebrations.
Mars 2020 mission
Packed with groundbreaking technology, the Mars 2020 mission launched on July 30, last year, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, US. The rover streaked through the Martian atmosphere and landed safely inside the vast Jezero Crater on Mars, after travelling for 203 days and traversing 472 million kilometres, the US space agency said.
Mars
NASA
NASA
Mars
Jezero Crater
Mars
Equipped with seven primary science instruments, the most cameras ever sent to Mars, and its exquisitely complex sample caching system, Perseverance will scour the Jezero region for fossilised remains of ancient microscopic Martian life, taking samples along the way, according to the US space agency.
NASA
Director of NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory (JPL), Michael Watkins, noted that landing on Mars is always an incredibly difficult task. "We built the rover not just to land but to find and collect the best scientific samples for return to Earth, and its incredibly complex sampling system and autonomy not only enable that mission, they set the stage for future robotic and crewed missions," Watkins said.