NASA’s Perseverance Rover successfully landed on Mars yesterday, becoming the ninth US spacecraft to land on Mars since the 1970s and the most advanced to date. The rover will spend the next 687 days (one year on Mars) collecting samples and searching for signs of past microbial life. NASA hopes to return the samples to Earth by 2031.
Extra: Because the landing process takes place faster than signals can travel between Earth and Mars, the rover had to land using pre-programmed commands in a process that is often referred to as “seven minutes of terror.”
The New Paper
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