NASA rover streaks toward a landing on Mars

A NASA rover streaked toward a landing on Mars on Thursday in riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer wher life ever existed on red planet.

Ground controllers at ncy's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasena, California, settled in nervously for descent of Perseverance to surface of Mars, long a deathtrap for incoming craft. It takes a nail-biting 11 1/2 minutes for a signal that would confirm success to reach Earth.

landing of six-wheeled vehicle would mark third visit to Mars in just over a week. Two craft from United Arab Emirates and China swung into orbit around planet on successive days last week.

All three missions lifted off in July to take vant of close alignment of Earth and Mars, traveling some 300 million miles in nearly seven months.

Perseverance, biggest, most vanced rover ever sent by NASA, stood to become ninth craft to successfully land on Mars, every one of m from U.S.

car-size, plutonium-powered rover was aiming for NASA’s smallest and trickiest target yet: a 5--by-4-mile strip on an ancient river delta full of pits, cliffs and fields of rock.

Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened 3 billion to 4 billion years ago, when water still flowed on planet.

Percy, as it is nicknamed, was designed to drill down with its 7-foot (2-meter) arm and collect rock samples that might hold signs of bygone microscopic life. plan called for three to four dozen chalk-size samples to be sealed in tubes and set aside on Mars to be retrieved by a fetch rover and brought homeward by ar rocket ship, with goal of getting m back to Earth as early as 2031.

Scientists hope to answer one of central questions of ology, philosophy and exploration.

“Are we alone in this sort of vast cosmic desert, just flying through , or is life much more common? Does it just emerge whenever and wherever conditions are ripe?” said deputy project scientist Ken Williford. “Big, basic questions, and we don’t kw answers yet. So we’re really on verge of being able to potentially answer se ermous questions.”

China’s craft includes a smaller rover that also will be seeking evidence of life — if it makes it safely down from orbit in May or June.

Perseverance's descent has been described by NASA as “seven minutes of terror," in which flight controllers can only watch helplessly. preprogrammed craft was designed to hit Martian atmosphere at 12,100 mph (19,500 kph), n use a parachute to slow it down and a rocket-steered platform kwn as a sky crane to lower rover rest of way to surface.

Mars has proved a treacherous place: In span of less than three months in 1999, a U.S. craft was destroyed upon entering orbit because engineers mixed up metric and English units, and an American lander crashed on Mars after its engines cut out prematurely.

NASA is teaming up with European ncy to bring rocks home. Perseverance’s mission alone costs nearly $3 billion.

only way to confirm — or rule out — signs of past life is to analyze samples in world’s best labs. Instruments small eugh to be sent to Mars wouldn’t have necessary precision.

“ Mars sample return project is probably most challenging thing we’ve ever attempted within NASA,” said planetary science director Lori Glaze, “and we don’t do any of se things alone.”

(Im Credit: AP)