NASA’s Perseverance rover safely landed on Mars travelling 292.5 million-mile from earth. The landing was flawless, said the agency’s mission team.
Soon after touchdown, the spacecraft sent back its first images of the landing site, which shows the rover’s shadow on the surface of its landing site , the Jezero Crater.
The rover had left Earth more than 6 months ago. Perseverance and her teams upkept the namesake, tiding over challenges of preparing for the 300 million-mile journey’s final stages during hard-hit pandemic times.
The landing is historic in that, it is full of firsts. The search for signs of ancient life on Mars. The first helicopter fly on another planet. The first recordings of sound on the red planet. And, Percy, as the spacecraft is affectionately called at Mission Control, is the most sophisticated rover NASA has built to date.
President Je Biden lauded the landing in his tweet: Congratulations to NASA and everyone whose hard work made Perseverance's historic landing possible. Today proved once again that with the power of science and American ingenuity, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility."
