Brace for impact: monumental landing of Mars rover

February 28, 2021

NASA recently landed the Perseverance rover. This marks another milestone in man’s exploration of Mars and our solar system.

NASA launched Perseverance on, Jan. 30th, 2020 from Titusville, Florida. Perseverance is the most advanced rover ever sent into space and has successfully landed in a crater on Mars to search for signs of life.

Over the 144 million-mile journey from Earth to Mars, Perseverance’s trip was a quiet one, until entering the atmosphere.

The period of time between entering the atmosphere and touching onto martian soil was referred to as the seven-minutes of terror. In this time Perseverance would have to decelerate over 12,000mph in order to land.

One hotshot: Perseverance traveled at a constant rate of 12,000mph (over seven times faster than a bullet) on its trip to Mars. (NASA)

HIGH DEFINITION: Ingenuity is a drone mounted with a camera weighing about four pounds and has a maximum weight limit of almost 20 pounds. It is armed with a high-resolution downward-facing camera. (NASA)

It accomplished this by using a heat shield to prevent it from burning in the atmosphere, a parachute to catch the wind and slow the descent, and deployed a jetpack connected by a 60-foot-long cable, that flew far away after Perseverance landed on Mars’ surface.

This process was executed flawlessly.

Packed with new cameras and a drone, Perseverance is expected to send us high-definition photos of Mars’ landscape.