Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars

NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Source: NASA

Perseverance rover landing on mars.

By: Kevin Geng, Journalist

On February 18, 2021, the perseverance rover landed on Mars. It has already taken over 7000 photos. The rover has costed NASA about 2.4 billon dollars. A very hard part of getting the rover to mars was landing the rover on mars. The decent only takes seven minutes but it is so far away the scientists have to rely on the rover to land itself. The Perseverance rover landed inside the Jezero creator on mars and is able to move at about 200 meters per day, five times faster then the curiosity rover that landed in 2012. The Jezero crater was once an ancient lake . The  Perseverance rover is the first ever Mars rover that is going to look for past life on Mars. When the rover landed on Mars, NASA updated the rovers software so it can drive on mars itself. They said that the software update took many days to complete.

NASA said that in 2031 they are going to get a rocket to retrieve the samples from the rover back to Earth. They are already working with Northrop Grumman to design the propulsion system that will get the rover back to the Earth.