On Monday, the American space agency NASA shared a breathtaking video that was taken during the landing of the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars. The footage captures all stages of the rover's descent and landing, from the moment the parachute deployed in the atmosphere of Mars to the separation of the descent stage after Perseverance touched down on the planet's surface.
NASA reported that the video recording was carried out using four video cameras, two of which were installed on the rover itself, another on the descent stage, and the fourth on Perseverance's protective backshell.
“From the moment of parachute inflation, the camera system covers the entirety of the descent process, showing some of the rover's intense ride to Mars' Jezero Crater. The footage from high-definition cameras aboard the spacecraft starts 7 miles (11 kilometers) above the surface, showing the supersonic deployment of the most massive parachute ever sent to another world, and ends with the rover's touchdown in the crater,” NASA reports.
In addition, NASA posted a panoramic video of the rover's landing site captured by its color Navigation Cameras.
The rover also recorded the sounds from the surface of Mars. NASA noted that the rover was unable to record sound during landing due to software problems. However, while on the surface of Mars, it recorded two short audio tracks.
“About 10 seconds into the 60-second recording, a Martian breeze is audible for a few seconds, as are mechanical sounds of the rover operating on the surface,” the press release says.
Now that you’ve seen Mars, hear it. Grab some headphones and listen to the first sounds captured by one of my microphones. 🎧https://t.co/JswvAWC2IP#CountdownToMars
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 22, 2021
NASA also published a picture taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera on February 18, 2021. It demonstrates the parachute that helped slow down NASA's Perseverance rover during its landing on the surface of Mars, the rover itself, and the ancient river delta in the Jezero crater.
The @HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured part of @NASAPersevere’s landing. The circle indicates where the rover eventually touched down and the zoomed-in portion shows Perseverance’s deployed parachute. https://t.co/bnHfI5R4PZ #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/XvL4ICOcMd
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) February 20, 2021
Perseverance, the largest rover in history, successfully landed on Mars on the night of February 19. The entire landing operation, which took place in a fully automatic mode, took seven minutes. To slow down the heaviest payload in the history of Mars exploration, the parachute was deployed, and the heat shield, designed to protect the rover from high temperatures, subsequently dropped away. At the final stage of landing, a descent stage with six rocket thrusters fired, slowing Perseverance even more, after which the descent stage gently lowered the rover on three nylon cords. When the wheels of the rover touched the ground, it snipped the cords, and the descent stage flew to a safe distance.
In addition to studying geology and climate of Mars, the history of its evolution, as well as searching for traces of ancient life, Perseverance is tasked with collecting soil samples to further return them to Earth.
