after a 203-day journey through 293 million miles, a confirmation of the successful touch of NASA’s march determination Rover was announced on January 18, 2021 at 15:55 EST in mission control at NASA’s aircraft propulsion laboratory in southern California. the determination Rover mission is an ambitious first step in the effort to collect marching monsters and bring them back to earth. the space agency invited the world to see it live, very much in line with our pandemic reality, in an event that includes the entry, descent and landing on the red planet – the most dangerous landing yet. see the NASA team celebrate moments after the spacecraft successfully touched Mars in the video below.
“This landing is one of the most important moments for NASA, the United States and space exploration worldwide – when we know we’re looking for discovery and, so to speak, sharpening our pencils to rewrite the textbooks,” said acting NASA administrator Steve Jurczyk. ‘the perseverance mission of march 2020 embodies the spirit of our country to persevere, even in the most challenging situations, to inspire and promote science and exploration. the mission itself embodies the human ideal of persevering into the future and will help us prepare for human exploration of the red planet in the 2030s. ‘
all images courtesy of NASA
during landing, the robber plunged more than 12,000 km / h (approximately 20,000 km / h) through the atmosphere of Mars. a parachute and powered descent slowed the rover to 3 km / h. During the so-called ‘sky crane maneuver’, the downhill road lowered the rover on three cables to land softly on six wheels at the jezero crater. determination is also conducting a technology experiment – the ingenuity-marching helicopter – that will attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.
‘‘because of today’s exciting events, the first pristine monsters from carefully documented locations on another planet are one step closer to returning to Earth,’ says Thomas Zurbuchen, co-administrator of science at NASA. perseverance is the first step in bringing back rock and regolith from Mars. we do not know what these pristine monsters of Mars will tell us. but what they could tell us is monumental – among other things that life may have once existed beyond the earth. ‘
NASA’s determination the mission is to look for signs of ancient life in March. previous missions have discovered evidence that the red planet once offered running water before it became a frozen desert. the mission will use state-of-the-art technologies that include a helicopter named ingenuity, the first aircraft that attempted to fly powered flights from another planet. the collection of important data as well as tools and technologies that could pave the way for future human missions to the moon and march are also on the table.