NASA’s latest Mars rover Perseverance has sent back video of its landing. For the first time the landing of a Mars rover has been recorded in real time and transmitted back to Earth for our viewing pleasure.
The Entry Descent and Landing “EDL” of Mars rover Perseverance, dubbed the “7 Minutes of Terror” where literally thousands of things had to go right to avoid catastrophe, was mostly captured by onboard cameras.
Landing this rover was more challenging than previous rovers because of its larger size and the terrain it was targeted for in the Jezero crater. The craft made use of new landing technology called Terrain-Relative Navigation. This technology uses a special camera to quickly identify features on the surface which are compared to an onboard map to determine the safest spot to land. The video contains a play-by-play by Ground Control.
This rover landing also made use of the so-called “Skycrane Manuever” which used a jetpack tethered to the rover to gently lower the it to the surface of Mars. Previous rover missions used airbag deployments where the rover was allowed to bounce off the surface of Mars until it came to a halt.
Recommended reading:
https://fishersmedia.com/science/nasas-latest-mars-rover-perseverance-set-to-touchdown-this-week/708/
https://fishersmedia.com/science/nasas-mars-perseverance-rover-sends-selfie-of-its-landing/752/