When the world’s most powerful rocket engine blasts off from Kennedy Space Center Monday, carrying the Orion spacecraft on NASA’s pioneering Artemis I mission to moon orbit, it also carries
The photo was released less than 24 hours after the Perseverance rover successfully touched down near an ancient river delta, where it will search for signs of ancient life and set aside the most promising rock samples for return to Earth in a decade.
NASA equipped the spacecraft with a record 25 cameras and two microphones, many of which were turned on during Thursdayâs descent.
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The first colour image sent by the Perseverance Mars rover after its landing.(NASA)
The rover is shown in extraordinary detail just two metres off the ground, being lowered by cables attached to an overhead sky crane, the red dust kicked up by rocket engines. NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, promises more photos in the next few days and possibly also an audio recording of the descent.
David Buecher, program manager, celebrates the successful landing of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover broadcasted live by NASA TV at Lockheed Martin Space’s Waterton Campus in Littleton, Colo., on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. Buecher designed the separation hardware for the heat shield for the Mars 2020 mission and the program manager for the Mars Helicopter deployment system. The Perseverance rover landed at the site of an ancient river delta in a lake that once filled Jezero Crater. The mission is to seek signs of ancient life, collect and store soil and rock samples. (Chancey Bush/ The Gazette)
Chancey Bush/ The Gazette