NASA's Perseverance has Landed on Mars! Come watch updates with us!

[MMohammed]

Perseverance has Landed!

UPDATE: We've got a livestream today (Feb 25th, 2021) concerning the latest panoramic imagery from Mars!

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Today, we'll be hearing about one of the most important elements of this mission: characterization of Martian geology and its past climate via the Mastcam-Z. Speakers will include:

• Jim Bell of Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, the instrument’s principal investigator.
• Elsa Jensen of Malin Space Science Systems, who leads the uplink operations team that sends commands to Mastcam-Z.
• Kjartan Kinch of the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen, who led the design, construction, and testing of Mastcam-Z’s color calibration targets, which are used to tune the instrument’s settings.

They'll be discussing the most recent imagery and what to expect next. Watch along with us! The stream starts at 4PM ET and can be seen below:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg&feature=emb_title

Image credit: NASA
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After setting off in the Summer last year, NASA's Perseverance rover is finally set to touchdown on the red planet. For a few reasons, this is an exciting time to be a space enthusiast. First of all, this mission represents a the most promising cache of samples, adding to a whole lot of Mars exploration that focuses on how habitable this planet was. Additionally, part of this mission involves a helicopter, named Ingenuity, that launched with Perseverance. This aircraft be testing out what flying through the Martian atmosphere is like!

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It's an exciting week here on the Space forums. Join us and watch the NASA livestream below. Perseverance lands tomorrow, February 18th, with the live webcast beginning at 2:15 PM EST.

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[MHaag]

This is so cool! I'll definitely tell my daughter so she can watch the stream.

 

[C0MMANDER C0DY]

Very excited to see another Mars landing

 

[SpaceEnthusiast]

I heard that the drill used to measure Mars seismicity did not work as expected. Are they doing that or something similar in this mission? I was also considering if there are caves on Mars? I know that is dangerous to go where anything can collapse or block sunlight.

 

[akashraoind]

excited!

 

[CRES]

What are we about to find there?

 

[MMohammed]

What are we about to find there?

Well, we'll find out once Percy makes its way back! As far as I'm concerned, it's just exciting to see so many efforts at further studying/ exploring Mars!

 

[sward]

This is so cool!

 

[tariqmalik]

Hey Space Fans!

As Space.com's Editor-in-Chief, I just wanted to reach welcome you all as we look forward to NASA's Perseverance Mars rover landing later today. We'll be posting updates as they come in here.

Our Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd is at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the landing, where she's interviewing NASA engineers and scientists with the mission ahead of the big event. One of those, a talk with NASA's top scientist Thomas Zurbuchen, will kick off at 11:45 a.m. EST (1645 GMT) on our Facebook page here.

Here's some key times to look out for:

2:15 p.m. EST (1915 GMT): NASA's landing coverage starts on Space.com
3:55 p.m. EST (2055 GMT): The moment NASA should receive confirmation of Perseverance's landing.
NET 5:30 p.m. EST (2230 GMT): A post-landing press conference at JPL.

We hope you'll follow along with us today at Space.com and look forward to some awesome new views from the ground at Jezero Crater.

Here's a few more key tidbits ahead of today's landing:

Here's a step-by-step rundown of how Perseverance will land on Mars.
Our senior writer Chelsea Gohd takes a look at the Ingenuity helicopter on Perseverance here.

The weather on Mars for today's landing is great, senior writer Meghan Bartels reports.

Here's a guide on how to share the rover landing with your kids.

Wondering about Jezero Crater? Here's what we know of the region and you can see a photo tour here.

Here's the correct way to pronounce Jezero, by the way.

And you can see Mars in the night sky tonight! Just look near the moon.

Sincerely,
Tariq Malik

 

[tariqmalik]

Hey Space Fans,

Here's something to think about for today's Perseverance Mars rover landing. Mars is currently about 127 million miles away.

How far is that? It's so far that it takes a signal from Perseverance 11 minutes to reach the Earth, then another 11 minutes for any signal from NASA's mission engineers to reach the rover.

Perseverance's landing sequence lasts just 7 minutes, much to short to phone home, let alone get help from flight controllers on Earth. Here's how that works.

Once the rover starts its landing sequence, it will be on its one. Cross all your fingers!

 

[Suge_White]

Soooo, Is there a film crew recording it and transmitting it for us or?

 

[James.Bricknell]

Really looking forward to today, but I'm really interested in how the little copter is going to do. Completely new technology for Mars and it has to overcome a lot of challenges if it is going to work.

 

[MMohammed]

Really looking forward to today, but I'm really interested in how the little copter is going to do. Completely new technology for Mars and it has to overcome a lot of challenges if it is going to work.

100% agree. The very idea of flying around in Martian airspace is really intriguing!

 

[TFolsom]

Landstuhl Germany; Two Topics. 1. What were the reasons for changing the landing technique from what Curiosity and Opportunity used? 2. Other than proof of concept, what are the mission objectives for the helocopter. I assume it is rechargable, what is the fly (distance/time) and then recharge takes how long ?

 

[James.Bricknell]

The recharge time is going to be a key factor I think. That will limit the range. Unless it isn't rechargeable and it's just a one done.

It could be that it will just fly as far as it can in one direction until it has to land.

 

[Broadlands]

After it lands, how long will it take to start the scientific experiments and send back the results?

 

[ChrisA]

Soooo, Is there a film crew recording it and transmitting it for us or?

Even if there were, we'd still not know what was happening until at least 11 minutes after the fact.

No crew, but the lander does send back telemetry. There are hundreds of sensors inside the spacecraft that are read out at high speed and the data is sent to Earth in real-time. But it takes 11 minutes for the data to get to Earth. The rover might be inside a smoking crater before we get even the first bit of data.

Assuming it goes well there will be a "film" the lander carries some csamera and a radar so we will be able to see the landing some hours or days later after the recording are send back to Earth and processed.

 

[Kazoo750]

Perseverance is Landing!

Image credit: NASA
​

After setting off in the Summer last year, NASA's Perseverance rover is finally set to touchdown on the red planet. For a few reasons, this is an exciting time to be a space enthusiast. First of all, this mission represents a the most promising cache of samples, adding to a whole lot of Mars exploration that focuses on how habitable this planet was. Additionally, part of this mission involves a helicopter, named Ingenuity, that launched with Perseverance. This aircraft be testing out what flying through the Martian atmosphere is like!

​

It's an exciting week here on the Space forums. Join us and watch the NASA livestream below. Perseverance lands tomorrow, February 18th, with the live webcast beginning at 2:15 PM EST.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg&feature=emb_title
​

Go Percy!!!

 

[James.Bricknell]

Damn eyes.nasa.gov has crashed! too many viewers

 

[C0MMANDER C0DY]

TOUCH DOWWWWN!!!!

 

[Wizardofmann]

Amazing

 

[COLGeek]

Awesomeness of the highest order! Well done, Team Perseverance!!!

 

[vincenzosassone]

Today I have heard something odd on TV. The rover landed in a crater that could be the remnants of a lake. How many possibility are there??? And what's more, I heard something like "that lake is the place where we could find micro organism", incredible. To sum up, we sent a rover on a place in the martian soil who was a lake where is possible to find life, that would be amazing. Anways, perhaps life is common, we may find it on Venus too, but intelligence is hard to discover...

 

[MMohammed]

Well...THAT was exhilarating! Check out Percy's first views of Jezero Crater!

 

[DrRaviSharma]

Tariq
Congratulations to all including Space.com community.
Thanks for your message. I have been watching live coverage.
Excitement matches the thrills of Apollo Programs.
Automation with perfection in spite of new technologies used for landing.
Certainly the younger generation will one day be celebrating human landing on Mars and we also hope to sooner see evidence of extra terrestrial life.
Best Wishes to Perseverance team members.
Ravi Sharma
(Apollo Achievement Award Recipient, 1969)