Perseverance rover’s animated landing : Watch the video
Recommended for Middle Grades
NASA has recently released an animated video showing how its Perseverance rover will land on Mars on 18 February 2021.
The robot is being sent to a crater called Jezero where it will search for evidence of past life. However, the first thing is to land safely.
The steps needed to land on Mars is often referred to as the “seven minutes of terror”.
This is because all steps within about 7 minutes have to be taken perfectly. Otherwise, everything will be a failure.
So how will the landing go?
It starts more than 100 km above Mars. At this point, the Perseverance rover, in its protective capsule, is travelling at 20,000 km/h or 12,000 miles per hour.
In about 400 seconds or about 7 minutes, the system has to reduce this speed to less than 1m/s at the surface.
The capsule will fall from the sky on to the surface of Mars, slowly reducing its speed and deploying a parachute. Once it is closer to the ground, rockets are ignited (lit) below it to help hover above the surface, helping it land safely.
All this landing will be recorded on camera by Perseverance rover. The videos will be sent back to Earth if everything goes well.
This year, the US, China and UAE (United Arab Emirates) have also sent missions to study Mars. The missions are expected to arrive there by February 2021.
Watch the video here:
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