NASA’s Perseverance rover will complete its journey to the red planet on February 18. The US space agency shared a video in which you can see in detail the so-called ‘seven minutes of terror’ that the spacecraft will have to overcome during landing.
And most important part will be to reduce its speed: from 19,300 km / h in the upper part of the planet’s atmosphere to 3 km / h at the time of landing.
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During the maneuver, which consists of three phases – entry, descent and landing – the rover, equipped with a heat shield, will have to withstand a heat similar to the Sun’s surface: it could reach about 5,500 degrees Celsius.
Then, a parachute will brake the capsule, equipped with motors that will guide it to the landing site.
Finally, in the final minutes, the structure will unhook the rover with a cable system and leave the area.
“Don’t let anybody tell you different – landing on Mars is hard to do,” said John McNamee, project manager for the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission at JPL. “But the women and men on this team are the best in the world at what they do. When our spacecraft hits the top of the Mars atmosphere at about three-and-a-half miles per second, we’ll be ready,” said Mars 2020 Perseverance mission manager John McNamee.
NASA’s Martian mission, launched in July 2020, aims to search for signs of ancient microbial life and map the geology and climate of the red planet.
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Perseverance is the largest and most sophisticated robotic vehicle NASA has ever sent to the fourth planet in the solar system and is expected to pave the way for future human missions beyond the Moon. The rover is also supplemented with a small helicopter called the Ingenuity and all the necessary tools to collect Martian rocks.