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A NASA rover streaked through the orange Martian sky and landed on the planet, taking the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to retrieve rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on Mars.
Ground controllers at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, cheered and exchanged fists and high-fived in triumph and relief as they received confirmation that the six-wheeled Perseverance had landed on the red planet, during long time a death trap for incoming spaceship.
NASA / JPL-Caltech via AP
In this illustration provided by NASA, the Perseverance rover leaves the cruise stage of its spacecraft, minutes before entering the Martian atmosphere.
It took 11 and a half full minutes of tension for the signal to reach Earth.
“Landing confirmed! Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to start looking for signs of past lives,” flight controller Swati Mohan announced to her colleagues who wore coronavirus masks on their backs.
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One of the photos of the surface of Mars sent by Perseverance after landing.
The landing marks the third visit to Mars in just over a week. Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China entered orbit around Mars on successive days last week.
All three missions took off in July to take advantage of the close alignment of Earth and Mars, traveling some 482 million kilometers in nearly seven months.
Perseverance, the largest and most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became the ninth spacecraft to successfully land on Mars, each from the US.
NASA / JPL-Caltech via AP
This illustration provided by NASA shows the Perseverance rover, below, landing on Mars.
The plutonium-powered, car-sized rover aimed at NASA’s smallest and most complicated target: an 8 by 6.5 km swath in an ancient river delta filled with wells, cliffs and rock fields. Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened 3 billion to 4 billion years ago, when water was still flowing on the planet.
For the next two years, Percy, as he is known, will use his 2-meter arm to drill and collect rock samples with possible signs of past microscopic life.
Three to four dozen chalk-sized samples will be sealed in tubes and set aside on Mars for a spacecraft to retrieve and take home to another spacecraft. The goal is to return them to Earth from 2031.
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Perseverance sent a photo of the red planet shortly after landing.
Scientists hope to answer one of the central questions of theology, philosophy and space exploration.
“Are we alone in this kind of vast cosmic desert, just flying through space, or is life much more common? Does it just arise when and where conditions are right?” said deputy project scientist Ken Williford.
“We are really about to potentially answer these huge questions.”
China’s spacecraft includes a smaller rover that will also search for evidence of life, if it does so safely from orbit in May or June.
The perseverance was by itself during the descent of the “seven minutes of terror” described by NASA.
NASA / JPL-Caltech via AP
An illustration of the Perseverance rover.
Flight controllers waited helplessly as the preprogrammed spacecraft struck the Martian thin atmosphere of 95 percent carbon dioxide at 19,500 km / h, or 16 times the speed of sound, slowing as it plummeted.
He launched his 21-meter parachute, dropped his heat shield, and then used a rocket-guided platform known as an overhead crane to lower the rover the last 18 meters to the surface. Perseverance seemed to land about 35 meters from the nearest rocks.
“Take that, Jezero!” yelled a controller.
Bill Ingalls / NASA / AP
Members of NASA’s Perseverance rover team react in mission control after receiving confirmation that the spacecraft landed successfully at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Mars has proven to be a treacherous place: In less than three months in 1999, an American spacecraft was destroyed while entering orbit because engineers had mixed English and metric units, and a U.S. lander crashed on Mars after its engines will shut down prematurely.
Perseverance will conduct an experiment in which it will convert small amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into oxygen, a process that could be of great help to future astronauts by providing breathable air and an ingredient for rocket fuel.
Chancey Bush / The Gazette / AP
Engineer Sierra Gonzales watches a broadcast of NASA’s Perseverance rover landing on Mars at Lockheed Martin Space’s Waterton campus in Littleton, Colorado.
The rover is also equipped with a record 25 cameras and two microphones, many of them turned on during the descent. Among the never-before-seen sights NASA intends to send back in the next few days: the massive supersonic parachute opening and the ground closing in.
“A feast for the eyes and ears. It’s really going to be spectacular,” observed Jim Bell, senior scientist at Arizona State University, a pair of mast cameras that will serve as the rover’s eyes.
NASA / JPL-Caltech via AP
In this illustration provided by NASA, the Perseverance rover fires its descent stage engines as it approaches the Martian surface. This phase of your entry, descent, and landing sequence, or EDL, is known as “powered descent.”
NASA is partnering with the European Space Agency to bring the rocks home. The Perseverance mission alone costs almost three billion dollars.
The only way to confirm, or rule out, signs of past lives is to analyze the samples in the best laboratories in the world. Instruments small enough to be sent to Mars would not have the necessary precision.
“It really is the most extraordinary, incredibly complicated and history-making exploration campaign,” said David Parker, director of human and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency, on the eve of the landing.
