Happy Invade Mars Day! (NASA Perseverance Mars Rover Landing)

[WesL]

Get up y'all it's time to invade Mars!! About 687 Earth days ago the SUV-sized Perservance Mars Rover was launched from sunny Florida. Today it arrives at the red planet with a new set of scientific equipment including a drone! Be sure to follow along via NASA TV at the link below and leave a comment. The stream starts at 1:15pm central and landing should take place around 2:55 pm central. Live mode is enabled for this thread so if you are logged in as a member the new comments should automagically load at the bottom.

 

[WesL]

We are less than 30 minutes away from landing. The spacecraft is preparing to separate from the cruise stage that has ferried the rover from Earth. Direct communication with the rover has started with a series of broadcast tones that will help keep the JPL staff informed of the health of critical rover systems.

 

[WesL]

Cruise stage separation confirmed!! Landing software will wake up in a bit and start to warm up the thrusters needed for landing.

 

[Mike S]

Watching!

 

[WesL]

Just under 5 minutes until the spacecraft starts the descent through the Martian atmosphere. Going to be a hell of a ride.

 

[WesL]

Confirmation of entry interface aka starting to enter the Marian atmosphere. Just waiting for enough atmosphere to shart using thrusters to control it's route to the landing point.

 

[WesL]

Parachutes deployed!!! Wooohoooo

 

[WesL]

Heat shield gone, landing radar has a solution, landing engines firing up

 

[WesL]

TOUCHDOWN on Mars!! The Sky Crane has also successfully flown away to crash away from the Rover!

 

[WesL]

Wow.. already have our first images...

 

[ghost]

This was so awesome! Thank you for the play by play WesL

 

[WesL]

This was so awesome! Thank you for the play by play WesL

Thanks man. Hoping to grow our space audience lol

 

[WesL]

Starting to get some cool pictures now. It is clear they have upgraded the cameras for sure.


The descent stage holding NASA’s Perseverance rover can be seen falling through the Martian atmosphere, its parachute trailing behind, in this image taken on Feb. 18, 2021, by the High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The ancient river delta, which is the target of the Perseverance mission, can be seen entering Jezero Crater from the left.


This high-resolution still image is part of a video taken by several cameras as NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. A camera aboard the descent stage captured this shot.

Perseverance’s First Full-Color Look at Mars​

This high-resolution image shows one of the six wheels aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, which landed on Feb. 18, 2021. The image was taken by one of Perseverance’s color Hazard Cameras (Hazcams).

 

[WesL]

This has to be the most amazing landing video since Apollo

 

[bjdeming]

Another amazing thing about this is that the rover was able to select its own landing spot (the "divert" maneuver, I think).

Just. Wow!

 

[bjdeming]

Okay, this is from Curiosity, but still...cloud development. On Mars. Wow!



On with the invasion!