‘Touchdown confirmed!’ Perseverance landing marks new dawn for Mars science
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/touchdown-confirmed-perseverance-landing-marks-new-dawn-mars-science
A sky crane gently lowered Perseverance to a safe landing before crashing itself at a far remove.
It’s a new day on Mars. NASA’s $2.7 billion Perseverance rover has successfully landed in Jezero crater, alighting just 35 meters away from hazardous boulders it had identified during descent. At about 3:55 p.m. EST, confirmation came back of the rover safely touching its wheels down, resulting in exuberant but socially distanced applause from double-masked engineers at the mission’s control room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).