Mars Landing Live: NASA rover lands on red planet, US President Biden terms it 'historic'

Find out where is Perseverance on LIVE location after it landed on Mars in the Jezero Crater region. NASA’s Jezero Crater map shows the landing site for the Mars Perseverance, wherein the landing area is marked with a blue ellipse, this is the zone the team is targeting. Users can scroll and pan around to see the exact location of the vehicle. “The goal of the mission is to seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) for a possible return to Earth,” NASA’s mission to Mars said. The map, shared by Perseverance’s official Twitter handle, is composed of two layers: a grayscale Jezero Crater map, and a true-colour base map. The greyscale base map, according to NASA, was created with images from the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, while the colour base map is from the European Space Agency Mars Express High-Resolution Stereo Camera. NASA’s engineers created this LIVE experience with software used by the mission team who decide where Perseverance will explore, and how to get there. 

World leaders on Friday congratulated NASA for the successful landing of Mars rover 'Perseverance' on the Red Planet. While the US leaders President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris called the moment 'historic', adding that the mission embodies "our nation’s spirit of perseverance", French President Emmanuel Macron lauded the rover's successful landing saying that with the vehicle, a French technology 'SuperCam' landed on Mars. "A part of the French excellence has just arrived on the red planet to study the Martian rock," he said, congratulating NASA. Many other world leaders hailed the rover's iconic' touchdown after nearly a seven-month voyage from Earth. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California celebrated with claps and shoutouts when the Perseverance rover successfully touched down on Mars Thursday. 

"Feeling the heat, and the Gs! I’m past peak heating and deceleration. Now in the guided entry phase, maneuvering to zero in on my landing target," NASA's Perseverance rover tweeted ahead of its touchdown on Mars. It later notified: 'I'm safe on Mars.' NASA's car-size robotic explorer, which landed on Mars Thursday after a 292.5 million-mile journey from Earth, will search for traces of ancient life on mars as it gathers the rock samples and brings them back to the scientists for analysis in NASA laboratories on Earth. See all its tweets as it descended on the Martian surface 'safely' in a mission.

US President Joe Biden tweeted a message for NASA, and the Mars Perseverance Rover team, congratulating the agency for its handwork and for making a “historic landing possible”. Biden, in a tweet, hailed the power of science saying that there was nothing beyond the realm of possibility. The United States President shared a photograph of himself where he was seen wearing a mask, standing in front of a television in the oval office, watching NASA’s historic Perseverance rover’s landing as it descended on the Martian surface to unveil scientific mysteries about the habitable life on Mars. 

NASA’s acting administrator Steve Jurczyk, who has served NASA since 1988 and was recently appointed under Biden administration speaks about the ‘phone call’ he received from US president Joe Biden congratulating NASA’s Perseverance team. “About an hour after landing, I got a phone call from the US president who talked about how proud he was about what NASA and Perseverance team had achieved,” the administrator said. “He wanted me to send the entire team regards, and he wanted to congratulate the team, personally, and we will make that happen,” Steve Jurczyk mentioned. 

US Vice President Kamala Harris congratulates NASA for ‘successful’ Perseverance Mars rover landing. Calling NASA’s Mars rover’s touch down as ‘historic’ the US vice president said the vehicle embodies “our nation’s spirit of perseverance”. See the tweet. 

After completion of its nearly 203-day journey, traversing 293 million miles (472 million kilometers), NASA’s Mars rover ‘Perseverance’ landed on Mars, a team inspecting the landing at mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed at 3:55 p.m. EST (12:55 pm PST).  NASA’s Mars rover was launched on July 30, 2020, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, US and as it touched down on the Red Planet, Thursday, it marked “ambitious first step” in NASA’s effort to collect Mars samples and return on Earth to help the humanity decode the mysteries of the microbial life on the planet. Follow Perseverance's location real-time here.

“This landing is one of those pivotal moments for NASA, the United States, and space exploration globally – when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks,” said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk.

“The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission embodies our nation’s spirit of persevering even in the most challenging of situations, inspiring, and advancing science and exploration. The mission itself personifies the human ideal of persevering toward the future and will help us prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.”NASA’s 2,263-pound (1,026-kilogram) robotic geologist is currently on Mars and is set to begin a two-year science investigation of its new home on Mars 'Jezero Crater' region. 

[A view from the "Kimberley" formation on Mars taken by NASA's Curiosity rover. The strata in the foreground dip towards the base of Mount Sharp, indicating flow of water toward a basin that existed before the larger bulk of the mountain formed. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS] 

Robotic explorer’s mission

Perseverance, now that it has landed on the red planet, will search for minerals, rocks and thoroughly inspect Mars’ surface in a region, where scientists speculate, life may have existed 3.9 billion years ago. A team behind NASA's Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity had found that billions of years ago, Mars was “capable of storing water in lakes over an extended period of time.” NASA’s Curiosity rover had helped NASA scientists find that ‘water’ helped deposit sediment into Gale Crater on Mars. This was the spot where NASA’s Curiosity had landed more than three years ago.

[An image taken at the "Hidden Valley" site, en-route to Mount Sharp, by NASA's Curiosity rover. A variety of mudstone strata in the area indicate a lakebed deposit, with river- and stream-related deposits nearby. Credit: NASA]

[The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Credit: NASA]

“Sediment deposited in this region as layers formed the foundation for Mount Sharp, the mountain found in the middle of the crater today,” NASA, in a breakthrough scientific discovery found. "Observations from the rover suggest that a series of long-lived streams and lakes existed at some point between about 3.8 to 3.3 billion years ago, delivering sediment that slowly built up the lower layers of Mount Sharp," said Ashwin Vasavada, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Perseverance, after its "seven minutes of terror" landing, now prepares to explore Mars’ craters, canyons, mountains, glaciers and features in Jezero Crater, 28-mile-wide ancient lake bed and river delta, a site carefully selected by NASA scientists. The rover will bring answers to Earth for one of humanity’s most sought-after mysteries—Can life exist on Mars? Is the planet habitable? 

After NASA’s Perseverance completed its 292-million-mile journey dubbed as “seven minutes of terror,” engineers and scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena share experiences and updates about the Red Planet mission. Perseverance’s landing was confirmed at 12:55 p.m. EST and the first-ever photos of the Perseverance were released by NASA, taken by rover’s cameras from the surface of Mars, in a first.

The screens at JPL displayed the touchdown of the historic event, and JPL’s scientist Jennifer Trosper said: ”We hope that we will get some thumbnail movies of some of the [descent] camera images.” The vehicle, at this time, is operating as expected in transit to the Jezero Crater, according to NASA’s propulsion laboratory scientists. “Perseverance is operating perfectly right now,” Trosper, deputy project manager for the mission, said at the briefing. 

As NASA’s Mars rover successfully touched down on the Red Planet, scientists give a Post-landing update to talk about “what’s next” for Perseverance after it made it Mars after nearly seven-month journey. Having traversed 293 million miles (472 million kilometers) from the Earth on the Red planet, scientists are now focused on testing the health of the rover. “This landing is one of those pivotal moments for NASA, the United States, and space exploration globally, when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks,” said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk.  

Post its landing, the 2,263-pound (1,026-kilogram) robotic astrobiologist will undergo several weeks of testing before it actually starts its mission of exploring Mars’ Jezero Crater for nearly 2 years.  NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) scientists are now assigned with the task to work on  Mars Sample Return mission to bring Perseverance, carrying unique rock samples, back to Earth. “Because of today’s exciting events, the first pristine samples from carefully documented locations on another planet are another step closer to being returned to Earth,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA.

As NASA flew a 4-pound, multi-million dollar helicopter Ingenuity’ that operates autonomously for the first time on Mars, Project manager Mimi Aung discusses the “first ever flight test” dispatched by NASA on another planet. Hitching a ride in the belly of NASA’s Perseverance Rover, as it landed safely on Mars, Ingenuity is the world's first ever rotor-craft to land on Red Planet as NASA’s project manager describes the landing 'Wright Brothers moment’.

'Wright Brothers moment': First ever aircraft on another planet

To get this helicopter on Mars, for the first time, scientists at NASA's jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena started research back in 1990s. Until recently, in a milestone achievement they found a technology to send Inguenity helicopter along with Perseverance to assist in exploration. "The major milestone that is now coming up is doing the actual experiment at Mars, and that's where my motivation comes from, the Wright Brothers," ingenuity's project manager Aung said in a live streamed address. In a first, she said, the Mars Helicopter will take off, navigate, and land on Mars—all independent from any human intervention. The “little helicopter” is the size of a box of tissues, weighing  1.8kg, and is fitted by NASA under 1.2m carbon fiber rotors. It is the first ever aircraft in history to fly on Mars. Although, the challenge for the aviator remains to withstand Mars’ extreme frigid temperatures. 

[NASA engineers modifying the flight model of the Mars Helicopter inside the Space Simulator at NASA JPL. Credit: JPL/NASA]

[NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter stands on the Red Planet's surface. Credit: NASA]

Watch Perseverance rover land on Mars in this NASA live stream of 360-degree engineer's-eye-view from inside Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA’s “biggest, heaviest, cleanest, and most sophisticated six-wheeled robot ever” touched down the Red Planet after successful completion of a final procedure—Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL). After making a landing on the Martian surface, Perseverance rover is set to begin its mission: Search for clues of ancient microbial life on Mars. NASA’s rover will employ dozens of scientific instruments, including cameras and lasers, to explore and investigate Mars’ surface at its site known as Jezero crater, where the ancient river delta is situated and scientists believe this region could unveil mysteries that could contain evidence of 'life on Mars’.

“That’s what we’re interested in exploring for a variety of reasons,” University of Florida geologist and participating scientist Dr. Amy Williams had told a press conference earlier. Perseverance, that has successfully touched down Mars will begin collecting rock samples and bring them to the NASA scientists on a separate return mission.

NASA’s Perseverance shared its first-ever “look” as it safely landed on Mars in one of the most terrifying landings’ ever, as dubbed by the space agency. Perseverance rover was seen tugged on the Martian surface as it touched down after nearly a six-month trip to the red planet. Built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, the Perseverance rover landed on its 5th mission on the Martian surface to conduct exploration in search of microbial life and operate for nearly two years to collect rock samples in NASA’s most technologically advanced expedition.

NASA’s rover is loaded with dozens of cameras and scientific instruments to navigate the Martian surface and collect key data that will reveal mysteries of the presence of any ancient life on the planet. “Mars captivates our imagination and has been part of our dreams for many decades, and Perseverance balances on the long history of systematic science-driven exploration of Mars,” Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator of the science mission directorate, said in a briefing. 

NASA’s Perseverance rover makes a historic landing on Mars, following hundreds of critical events that executed perfectly and exactly on time for the rover to land safely on Feb. 18, 2021. Reaching the top of the Martian surface, Perseverance executed its Entry, Descent, and Landing, or “EDL” procedure at speed of 2,500 mph (20,000 kph), nearly 7 minutes after entering the atmosphere of the 'Red Planet’. In its ‘most terrifying’ landing, as dubbed by NASA, Perseverance separated from its backshell and fired up the descent stage engines successfully at about 6,900 feet (2,100 meters) from the Martian surface.

Perseverance, following the descent stage level, slowed to its final descent speed of about 1.7 mph (2.7 kph). At this point, the rover initiated the complex “skycrane” maneuver, nearly 66 feet (20 meters) above the mars’ land. As it prepared to touch down, the rover rested on the set of cables about 21 feet (6.4 meters) long unbowed its mobility system, locking its legs and wheeled into a landing position. As perseverance’s wheels touched the Mars surface, the rover snapped the cables once again, connecting it to the descent stage. The descent stage has thus flown off, making its own uncontrolled landing on the surface, away from the Perseverance rover. 

NASA's Perseverance has entered Mars' atmosphere after a successful Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) procedure. 

NASA’s Perseverance rover has entered the cruise phase as the spacecraft detached itself from the rocket, a few minutes ago. Departed the earth at a speed of 24,600 mph (about 39,600 kph), as Perseverance prepares to land on the Red Planet, NASA’s engineers have five opportunities (plus one backup maneuver and one contingency maneuver) to adjust the flight path. During the cruise stage, NASA engineers can track the rover’s location and command eight of its thrusters, all the while can perform the trajectory correction maneuvers as the rover heads towards Mars’ surface.

“A specific amount of time needed to tweak the path,” NASA said in a release. “These maneuvers during the Cruise phase are very important because years of careful planning led to the selection of Jezero Crater as the landing site on Mars, and fine-tuning the flight path ensures that the spacecraft will enter the Mars atmosphere at just the right spot to land inside Jezero crater,” NASA informed. Perseverance entered the approach phase, approximately 45 days ago to conduct the navigation activities and getting the spacecraft ready for accurate Entry, Descent, and Landing. Currently, as per NASA, the Perseverance is also operating normally, "transmitting heartbeat tones — these tones indicate that Perseverance is operating normally," according to the team. 

NASA's Perseverance Rover is currently transmitting Heartbeat tones, indicating that the rover is operating normally, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory lead said.

“The Mars sample return campaign is probably the most challenging thing we've ever tried to do. But we're definitely not going to try to do it alone,” Director of NASA's Science Mission Directorate's Planetary Science Division, Lori Glaze said on NASA LIVE coverage, ahead of Perseverance’s touchdown. NASA has signed international partners, who, according to Glaze, have agreed to contribute to the Mars mission in enormous ways. NASA will establish a joint concept team with its international partners to assess mission potential, as well as partnership opportunities. “Mars samples are incredibly complex,” Glaze said, adding that ESA will help NASA to bring back the Perseverance samples to the Earth. Further, she said, that NASA plans to launch an American lander in a separate mission that will pick samples left by Perseverance from the Martian surface. ESA will also launch an orbiter to study the complex samples in the NASA laboratories. 

The agency, as per a release, has also signed a statement of intent with its International partners to advance a possible robotic Mars ice mapping mission, which could help identify abundant, accessible ice for future candidate landing sites on the Red Planet. NASA has signed the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), among others for its international Mars Ice Mapper mission. 

Deputy project manager Jennifer Trosper explains how the Perseverance Rover which is about to begin its Entry, Descent, Landing to the Red Planet has been upgraded from her predecessors, especially the Curiosity Rover. From Autonomous navigation, upgraded cameras to Sample collection system, the Perseverance has it all. Listen in - 

Ahead of Perseverance’s touch down on Mars, NASA informs that the communication signals on the rover, that travel at the speed of light, can take between 3 and 22 minutes for the information to reach the Earth. This, according to European Space Administration might be “one of the most difficult things about operating a spacecraft around Mars.” During Curiosity EDL, this delay recorded was 13 minutes, 48 seconds, about mid-way between the minimum delay of around 4 minutes and the maximum of around 24 minutes. 

Perseverance is expected to hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at around 3:48 p.m. EST (12:48 p.m. PST) and touch down at around 3:55 p.m. EST (12:55 p.m. PST). Perseverance’s two Mars orbiters will rely on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) of the Mars Relay Network to communicate the radio signals. “MRO is expected to relay detailed Perseverance engineering data to Earth in near-real-time,” NASA informed in a release. “MAVEN will also be flying over Perseverance’s landing site around the same time, recording the same data as MRO. MAVEN, however, will only be able to transmit its data hours after the rover lands,” the agency said. 

Perseverance's flight controllers according to LIVE telecast have now switched off the rover's transmitter, leaving it on its own for the most terrifying 7 minutes of the landing’. At this point, the Perseverance rover is now operational via onboard computers. "Turning off the transmitter is like taking your hands off of the wheel,” NASA’s Associate Administrator for science missions, Thomas Zurbuchen said.  Perseverance rover is now just an hour and some minutes away from landing on Mars.  NASA’s safety team has geared up to monitor the mission, here on, as Perseverance closes in on the Red Planet. Mars is currently 127 million miles from Earth as Perseverance approaches to land in a historic mission. 

NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen told the NASA LIVE coverage, as the countdown to Mars starts, that Perseverance rover is expected to explore minerals and rocks science has never seen before. Rover, in its Mars exploration, is expected to “follow the stream” [liquid water] using advanced tools of exploration that NASA’s earlier missions unveiled existed on Mars. NASA’s  Curiosity rover had earlier explored the “habitability” of Mars, and Perseverance is expected to dig into the never-explored before nutrients and energy sources on the Red Planet that will establish the existence of the microbial life on the planet in the ancient past. When asked by a student on LIVE coverage whether NASA believes that life existed on the Red Planet, NASA’s Associate Administrator Zurbuchen responded, saying, that this is the “crucial next step” Perseverance takes to help the scientists dig into those answers; by looking for the signs of past life. 

NASA’S Perseverance is set to explore the Jezero crater region of Mars, the region, scientists believe was once flooded with water and was home to an ancient river delta. NASA decided on the landing site for perseverance after mission team members and scientists analyzed various Martian surfaces in a five-year study of potential sites. According to NASA, Perseverance’s landing site is located 28 miles (45 kilometers) wide and is located on the western edge of a flat plain called Isidis Planitia, which lies just north of the Martian equator. The landing site is about 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) from Curiosity’s landing site in Gale Crater. 

As NASA begins the countdown of its Mars Perseverance rover to hit the ‘Red Planet’ today at 3:55 p.m. EST (2:25 am Indian time), NASA will begin the LIVE coverage of the historic mission at  2:15 p.m. EST (12:45 am Indian Standard Time), Friday. NASA’s Mars rover is expected to begin its descent to the planet’s Jezero Crater almost seven months after it was first launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the US. Perseverance's landing is one of the most challenging ever for NASA as it will be the first artificial object to land on the Martian surface since the Mars Insight lander in 2018 and Curiosity’s landing in 2012 with more audio-visual gears than ever carried to Mars. The spacecraft is mounted with several cameras to capture the historic descent stage which can be watched LIVE on NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube Channel, which will also stream a post-landing News Briefing.  You can also watch the Mars landing live here. Channels that will carry the live broadcast include: , Twitter, Facebook, and NASA LIVE TV.

Perseverance’s EDL phase will last only 7 minutes, and is the critical and most dangerous part of the mission, according to EDL lead Allen Chen. Perseverance will hit the Mars surface at 12,000 miles per hour  (19,312 kilometers per hour) and its descend module engine will fire one mile (1.5 kilometers) from the surface, activating the terrain relative navigation system, or TRN that will start mapping the region below. 

As NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is expected to make a historic touch down on Red planet on Feb. 18 at 3:55 p.m. ET, and during its landing, NASA will track updates on the ‘crucial’ final seven minutes. NASA’s rover is fitted with three Communications antennas. It primarily uses the High-Grain Antenna to send data directly to Earth.  “Perseverance rover will rely on the Mars Relay Network orbiters overhead to keep in touch with engineers on Earth,” NASA informed. The procedure will be similar to the Curiosity rover and InSight lander’s mission on the Red planet. Mars Relay Network, installed on Perseverance includes NASA orbiters which consist: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and MAVEN; and two ESA missions: ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Mars Express. 

[Credit: NASA]

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will act as a relay for lander radio communications that will send messages to the NASA team back home, the agency informed. The orbiter will listen for messages from the Perseverance and will send information to NASA's Deep Space Network of antennas on Earth. As the rover prepares to land on the Martian surface,  NASA’s five orbiter missions will “talk” to the rover and relay messages to NASA back home. These communication ‘Relay services’ are coordinated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

During the landing, Perseverance will transmit data via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and MAVEN, according to NASA. Entry, descent, and landing data will be captured via MRO and MAVEN in near-real-time, although data transmitted via MAVEN. NASA’s rover will continue to communicate via MRO and MAVEN, during the landing then later will communicate via Mars Relay Network, at least twice a day. Perseverance is expected to make one of the most terrifying and nail-biting landings which NASA dubbed as ‘7 minutes of terror’ as it will touch down on the most challenging terrain ever targeted by a Red Planet mission.