CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — A Mars rover Stripe through the Orange Martian Airspace and landed on the planet Thursday. Therefore, accomplishing the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer whether life ever breath on Mars.
Ground controllers at the space agency\’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California, leaped to their feet, thrust their arms in the air and cheered in both triumph and relief on receiving confirmation that the six-wheeled. Perseverance had demented down on the red planet, long a deathtrap for incoming spacecraft.
\”Now the surprising science starts,\” a jubilant Thomas Zurcher. NASA\’s science mission chief, said at a news conference, where he theatrically ripped up the contingency plan in the event of a misfire and tossed the document over his shoulder.
Entry of UAE\’s ad China\’s Aircrafts
The landing marks the third travel to Mars rover in just over a week. Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China Swung into Orbit everywhere Mars on successive days last week. All three missions lifted off in July to take edge of the close alignment of Earth. Further Mars, journeying some 300 million miles in nearly seven months.
Persistence, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became the ninth spacecraft since the 1970s to successfully land on Mars over, every one of them from the U.S.
The car-size, plutonium-powered vehicle arrived at Jezioro Crater, hitting NASA\’s. Smallest and trickiest target yet: a 5-by-4-mile strip on an ancient river delta full of pits, cliffs and rocks. Scientists believe that if life ever prosper on Mars, it would have happened 3 billion to 4 billion years ago. When water still flowed on the planet.
Over the next two years, Percy, as it is nicknamed, Will use its 7-foot (2-meter) arm to drill down and collect rock samples. Containing possible signs of bygone microscopic life. Three to four dozen chalk-size samples will be secure in tubes and set aside to be retrieved. The eventually by another rover and brought homeward by another rocket ship.
The Aim is to Get Back of Mars rover to Earth as early as 2031
Scientists hope to answer one of the foremost questions of theology, philosophy and space investigation. “Are we alone in this sort of vast cosmic desert, just flying through space. And is life much more common Does it just appear. Whenever and wherever the conditions are ripe?\” said deputy project scientist Ken Williford. \”We\’re really on the verge of being able to potentially answer these substantial questions.\”
China\’s spacecraft includes a smaller rover that also will be seeking authentication of health life. It makes it safely down from orbit in May or June.
Two older NASA landers are still bombinate along on Mars: 2012\’s Curiosity rover and 2018\’s Insight. Perseverance was on its own during its descent, an operation often described by NASA as \”seven minutes of terror.\”
Flight reviewed waited helplessly as the preprogrammed spacecraft hit the thin Martian atmosphere. At 12,100 mph (19,500 kph), or 16 times the speed of sound, slowing as it plummeted. It delivers its 70-foot (21-meter) parachute and then used a rocket-steered platform known as a sky crane to lower. The rover the final 60 or so feet (18 meters) to the surface..
At last, Perseverance punctually sent back two grainy, black-and-white photos of Mars\’ pockmarked, pimply-looking surface. Moreover, the rover\’s shadow visible in the frame of one picture.
NASA
\”Take that, Jezioro!\” a controller called out.
NASA says that the descending was undamaged. And that the rover came down in a \”parking lot\” — a relatively flat spot. Free of hazardous rocks. Hours after the landing, Matt Wallace, NASA adjutant project manager, reported that the spacecraft was in great shape.
Mars has proved a treacherous place. In the stretch of less than three months in 1999. A U.S. spacecraft was demolishing upon entering orbit because engineers had mixed up metric. And English units, and an American lander crashed on Mars after its engines cut out prematurely.
President Joe Biden tweeted greeting over the landing, saying: \”Today proved once again that with the power. Science and American ingenuity, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.
NASA is teaming up with the European Space Research Organization to bring the rocks home. Perseverance\’s mission alone costs nearly $3 billion.
The only way to confirm — or rule out — signs of past life. The survey the samples in the world\’s best labs. Implement small enough to be sent to Mars wouldn\’t have the necessary precision.
\”It\’s really the most exceptional, mind-bogglingly complicated and will-be history-making exploration campaign. \” Said David Parker, the European agency\’s director of human and robotic exploration.
Former astronaut and one-time NASA science chief John Grunfeld tweeted that. \”The Perseverance\’s landing was exactly the good news and inspiration we need right now.\”
\”Reminds us all that we will persist COVID and political turbulence and that the best is yet to come,\” he said.