The spacecraft "Perseverance" successfully landed yesterday, just before 11 pm Greek time on Mars. The goal of this NASA mission is to search for and collect traces of microbial and ancient life on the Red Planet, as well as its geological study. This landing on Mars is an important step for humanity and especially for the conquest of Space.
The six-wheeled SUV-sized rover, also known by the nickname “Percy,” is slightly larger and heavier than the “Curiosity” that has been studying Mars to date. It has more sophisticated scientific instruments, capable of more ambitious experiments, constituting the most advanced astrobiology laboratory sent to another celestial body to date. With tools , it will collect Martian samples, which will be returned to Earth on a future mission, which, if it happens, will be a world first.
Perseverance entered the atmosphere at a speed of 20,000 km/h and landed in the Jezero crater on the planet Mars. This is a large crater, which was once an ancient lake and river delta and where it is considered more likely that life forms existed billions of years ago, when Mars was warmer, wetter and possibly hospitable to life. The specially designed parachute, combined with the mechanically controlled descent, reduced the speed of the craft to 3 kilometers per hour, so that it could safely touch down on the surface of the Red Planet. Among other things, the rover has an experimental device that will convert the dioxide of the Martian atmosphere into pure oxygen, as well as a mini weather station, 19 cameras and two microphones that will record the first Martian sounds. The rover will also release "Ingenuity," a small robotic helicopter weighing 1.8 kilograms, the first in history to fly to another world.
But before all this happened, it took what NASA calls "seven minutes of terror" to ensure that the rover, which had made a seven-month space journey of 470 million kilometers, had landed safely on the surface of Mars. The Mission Control Center experienced these "seven minutes of terror" during the landing, without the ability to intervene in case of emergency, while the signal would have taken more than 11 minutes to reach the neighboring planet. The Red Planet has a bad reputation in space history, as most landing attempts have failed.
"Perseverance" is the fifth rover the US is sending to Mars.
In NASA's control room in California , applause erupted as the vehicle's parachute opened, and celebrations erupted when, minutes later, the robotic vehicle touched down in the Jezero crater on Mars. The vehicle's precise position and the first images of the Martian surface were transmitted to Earth
Perseverance was the third spacecraft to land on Mars in the last month, following those sent by the United Arab Emirates and China.
