Perseverance rover sent a still photo from its jetpack showing the tethered “Skycrane” maneuver just prior to touchdown. Unlike previous rover landings, Perseverance is too large to use the airbag landing method and had to be gently lowered from about 20 meters above the surface by a jetpack tethered to the rover.
The rover landed on Mars on February 18th and is going through a testing and validation phase as well as receiving software updates before fully deploying on its mission.
