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The US space agency NASA successfully landed its fifth ground vehicle on Mars Thursday night.
Perseverance, a 10-foot-long highly advanced robotic vehicle weighing more than a ton, will scour the surface of the red planet looking for signs of ancient life and collect rock and soil samples to return to Earth.
Its landing came almost seven months after the launch aboard the Atlas V-541 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory kept watch as computers and sensors aboard the rover’s cruise and descent stages, as well as other spacecraft around Mars, relayed data on the progress of the phase. Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) of the mission.
During this time, the team had to endure so-called “seven minutes of terror” during which the descending spacecraft with the rover performs a sequence of risky actions that occur faster than signals can reach Earth.
As a step
At an altitude of about 130 kilometers above Mars, the heat-protective carbon fiber capsule carried by the rover entered the atmosphere of Mars.
The surface of the heat shield reached a maximum temperature of 1,300 degrees Celsius as it descended.
After slowing down to a speed of 1,600 kilometers per hour, a 21.5-meter-wide supersonic parachute was deployed to reduce the speed of the ship.
However, due to the thinner atmosphere on Mars, this would not be enough to prevent the rover from hitting the ground at excessive speed.
Within 20 seconds of the parachute deployment, the capsule dislodged from its heat shield, allowing the exposed rover to scan the terrain below for features it could compare to an onboard map provided by engineers that included the closest landing sites. insurance.
Still traveling at about 300 km / h, the spacecraft severed the parachute and released its rear shell, before an eight-engine thruster mounted on top of the rover fired its thrusters.
It swerved to avoid the fall of the projectile and parachute, then continued its descent using sophisticated programming, before lowering Perseverance to the ground with cables, a maneuver dubbed the Skycrane.
The rover hit the ground at a speed of 1.2 km / h.
The team erupted in cheers after Operations Leader Swati Mohan confirmed the touchdown at around 10:55 PM South Africa time.
It should be noted that this was actually more than 10 minutes after the rover landed, due to the communication delay caused by the long distance to Mars.
The images below show illustrations of what the entry, descent and landing might have looked like.
First images
After landing, the rover captured three images using your camera to avoid hazards on right rear board.
The transmission of the first image appears to have been corrupted, but the other two showed clear images of the ground and various rocks in the vicinity of the rover.
Subsequent photos are expected to be of much higher quality, as they will be taken with cameras that were still protected during the landing.
Below are two of the three images that perseverance sent to earth shortly after landing.
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