Highlights
The Perseverance rover will touch down in Jezero Crater
The rover will go through the riskiest seven minutes of terror
New Delhi: In one of NASA s most ambitious projects, its Perseverance rover is scheduled to land on the surface of the planet Mars tonight (February 19), according to Indian time. The NASA Mars mission is aimed at conducting research in several areas such as astrobiology, including the searching signs of ancient microbial life.
It is the first mission in which Martian rock and sediment will be collected and brought to Earth. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the red planet.
UPDATED: February 19, 2021 00:40 IST
An illustration provided by Nasa depicting the Mars 2020 spacecraft carrying the Perseverance rover as it approaches the Red Planet. (Photo: AP)
Spacecraft aiming to land on Mars have skipped past the planet, burned up on entry, smashed into the surface, and made it down amid a fierce dust storm only to spit out a single fuzzy grey picture before dying.
Almost 50 years after the first casualty at Mars, Nasa is attempting its hardest Martian touchdown yet.
The rover named Perseverance is headed Thursday for a compact 5-mile-by-4-mile (8-kilometer-by-6.4-kilometer) patch on the edge of an ancient river delta.
Read more about NASA Mars mission: Perseverance rover successfully lands on red planet on Business Standard. Perseverance, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, stood to become the ninth spacecraft to successfully land on Mars
Perseverance was launched in July last year and it will set down some 2,000 miles away at Jezero Crater, descending by parachute, rocket engines and sky crane. This is being touted as the most difficult landing on Mars so far.
NASA is about to land its first helicopter Ingenuity on Mars
The small Ingenuity helicopter will have several challenges to overcome - the biggest being the rarefied Martian atmosphere. Image Source: NASA
Updated: Feb 16, 2021, 01:30 PM IST
US space organisation NASA is about to land a helicopter on the planet Mars on Thursday for the first time.
The small Ingenuity helicopter will have several challenges to overcome - the biggest being the rarefied Martian atmosphere, which is just one per cent the density of Earth s. It might be called a helicopter, but in appearance, it s closer to a mini-drone that weighs nearly 1.8 kilograms.