To Watch A Landing
Perseverance rover landing site image from the hazard avoidance camera, 2-21-2021 (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
For the first time in the history of Mars exploration, cameras and video gear recorded the landing of a rover on the Red Planet. The scientists and engineers at Pasadena's CalTech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory produced a video sequence of all the synchronized steps that were required to safely land the Perseverance rover in Jezero Carter. The video and photographs chronicle the major milestones during the final minutes of the mission's entry, descent, and landing on the Mars as the spacecraft plummeted, parachuted, and rocketed toward the surface of the planet. The stunning level of the planning, design, construction, and timing required for such a feat is hard to fathom. Now, the landscape science and robotic surveys in the Martian crater can begin with exciting discoveries to likely follow. WHB