Nasa shares new video of Perseverance rover landing on Mars
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Nasa has shared an amazing video of its Perseverance rover landing on Mars.
The rover touched down on the Red Planet on 19 February, and engineers added seven cameras to the rover to record not only what it's like on the Red Planet, but it's journey to the planet too.
"Now we finally have a front-row view to what we call 'the seven minutes of terror' while landing on Mars," said Michael Watkins, director of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
"From the explosive opening of the parachute to the landing rockets' plume sending dust and debris flying at touchdown, it's absolutely awe-inspiring."
The rover used a parachute, heat shield and a flying jetpack to help protect it as it entered Mars atmosphere, and to help it land gently and safely.
"We put the EDL camera system onto the spacecraft not only for the opportunity to gain a better understanding of our spacecraft's performance during entry, descent, and landing, but also because we wanted to take the public along for the ride of a lifetime - landing on the surface of Mars," said Dave Gruel, lead engineer for Mars 2020 Perseverance's EDL camera and microphone subsystem at JPL.
"I've been waiting 25 years for the opportunity to see a spacecraft land on Mars. It was worth the wait. Being able to share this with the world is a great moment for our team." said Matt Wallace, Mars 2020 Perseverance deputy project manager at JPL.
For now the team at Nasa are making sure that the Perseverance rover's systems are all working before they begin to use it's on board instruments to check the weather and take very detailed photos of the planet.
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