LIVE UPDATES: NASA’s Perseverance Rover Is Landing on Mars Today

After a decade of preparation and a nearly seven-month journey since its spectacular launch, NASA’s Perseverance rover is due to land on Mars today, February 18.

This event marks a major stage in NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, as engineers based at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will attempt to land the fifth and most ambitious Mars rover the space agency has ever sent to the Red Planet.

The nail-biting “seven minutes of terror” – during which the rover nestled in its entry capsule will enter the Martian atmosphere, descend, and land in Jezero Crater – will begin around 3:48 pm EST, and we are hoping to celebrate a successful touchdown at around 3:55 pm EST!

In the live blog below, we’ll be bringing you all the latest updates and fun science facts as we get closer to Perseverance’s landing. You can also tune into the NASA livestream right here: 

 

LIVE BLOG (all timestamps EST/refresh the page to see the latest updates)

2:45 pm: Another space mission, another live blog! As usual, we are so excited to be experiencing this rover landing here with you all. As of now, we’re entering the last hour before the action, and we are sure that over at NASA there are hundreds of nervous space engineers who barely slept a wink last night.

2:45 pm: While we wait, here are three fast facts about Perseverance: while largely based on its predecessor Curiosity, the new rover is more autonomous than any other craft previously landed on Mars; it’s carrying a helicopter (!) for a test of the first powered flights on Mars; nestled amongst its wheels is a commemorative plaque honouring medical workers from around the world, who have worked tirelessly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2:48 pm: By the way, if you’re keen on multi-screening this whole thing, the official Twitter hashtag is #CountdownToMars

Source

Author: showrunner