The Mars Report - NASA Science

On February 18, 2021, NASA successfully landed the Perseverance rover on Mars after traveling about 471 million kilometers from Earth. As it entered the Martian atmosphere at nearly 20,000 km/h, a powerful heat shield protected it from extreme heat. A supersonic parachute then deployed to slow it down. What followed was the intense “Seven Minutes of Terror.” Perseverance separated from the parachute, fired its rockets, and was carefully lowered to the surface using the sky crane system. Once the