Image Source: IEEE Spectrum
On February 18th, 2021 at 3:55 PM EST, the Perseverance Rover will Land on the Martian surface. With this accomplishment, it marks the beginning of a new era in space exploration on Mars. Equipped with new tools and technology, this rover will land in the Jezero Crater, where it will be searching for ancient microbial life that may have existed millions of years ago.
Jezero Crater was once thought of as a basin filled with water. However, we are going to prove that it was, or it wasn’t. If it was, then life may have been on the surface of Mars.
The Perseverance rover will encounter three main steps: entry, descent and landing. Once the rover enters the Martian atmosphere, it will automatically call up a heat shield to protect the fragile instruments from damage during its de-acceleration from 12,100 miles per hour to 2 miles per hour. Once it approaches the surface, the spacecraft will automatically detach the rover and the remaining parts will fly away. The whole process takes about 7 minutes to complete.
Using our kinematic formulas, we may also calculate that the acceleration of this rover is about -1728 miles per second squared.
Here is the livestream for the landing:
This is really cool!
Yes!! 😄
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