This week, if everything goes well, NASA’s Perseverance Rover will touch the surface of Mars and begin its research program. The mission cost over $2.5 billion and is seen as the most complex to date.
Perseverance landing on Mars (credit: NASA/JPL)
NASA is inviting the public to take part in virtual activities and events as the agency’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover nears entry, descent, and landing in the Jezero crater, with touchdown scheduled for approximately 3:55 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021.
The 1-ton rover should cover tens of kilometers on the planet’s surface in the coming years and complete the first part of a mission that aims to bring samples of rock and Martian soil to Earth after 2030.
A helicopter drone called Ingenuity will also be tested on the site, as well as an instrument that will try to produce oxygen by extracting carbon dioxide.
Perseverance, which conveys a 2-meter long robotic arm, 19 cameras and two microphones was launched on July 30, 2020. If it survives the touchdown, it will be the fifth NASA rover that manages to reach Mars in the past 24 years. Curiosity, which arrived in 2012, is still performing various scientific measurements on the site.
So far, Perseverance has traveled over 470 million km with less than 7 million km left to the Red Planet. The spacecraft currently moves at a speed of 77,000 km/h
