How to watch Nasa’s Perseverance rover touch down on Mars

Scientists face ‘seven minutes of terror’ as robotic explorer attempts challenging landing

The first images arrive moments after Nasa's Perseverance Mars rover spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars on February 18, 2021. Nasa TV via Reuters

Members of Nasa's Perseverance Mars rover team watch in mission control as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars. Nasa via AP

The second image sent by the Perseverance rover showing the surface of Mars, just after landing in the Jezero crater. Nasa via AP

Members of Nasa's Perseverance rover team react in mission control after receiving confirmation the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars, at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California on February 18, 2021. Nasa via Reuters

This artist's concept depicts Nasa's Mars 2020 rover on the surface of Mars. Nasa/JPL-Caltech

This image shows the remains of an ancient delta in Mars' Jezero Crater, which Nasa's Perseverance Mars rover will explore for signs of fossilized microbial life. ESA

The successful landing of the Perseverance could answer the age-old question of whether life ever existed on the red planet. AFP

This artist's concept depicts astronauts and human habitats on Mars. Scientists in Germany have found a way to grow bacteria under Mars-like conditions. Nasa / JPL-Caltech

NASA's Mars 2020 rover will store rock and soil samples in sealed tubes on the planet's surface for future missions to retrieve, as seen in this illustration. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Nasa’s Perseverance rover will attempt a perilous landing on Mars on Thursday, becoming the latest mission to explore the surface of the Red Planet.

After a journey of 480 million kilometres, the robotic explorer will arrive at Mars – hot on the heels of the UAE's Hope probe – and execute a tricky landing in the planet's Jezero Crater at 12.55am UAE time on Friday.

Nasa will be live-streaming the event on its YouTube channel, with coverage to start at 11.15pm in the UAE on Thursday.

The space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built the rover, will broadcast an immersive 360-degree-view of their control room for the mission.

Mission timeline: Seven minutes of terror

Cruise stage separation

The spacecraft that has flown Perseverance to the Red Planet will separate from the entry capsule at about 12.38am.

Atmospheric entry

About 10 minutes later, the landing module is expected to hit the top of the Martian atmosphere travelling at about 19,500kph.

Peak heating: In a matter of seconds, atmospheric friction will heat the bottom of the spacecraft to about 1,300°C.

Parachute deployment

Still travelling at supersonic speed, the spacecraft will release its parachute at about 12.52am, helping to slow its descent.

Heat shield separation

The capsule’s protective heat shield will detach about 20 seconds later, allowing the rover to use radar to determine how far it is from the ground and find a safe landing site.

Back shell separation

The back half of the entry capsule that holds the parachute will separate, leaving the rover and its rocket-powered descent stage to slow down and fly to the landing site.

Touchdown

The rover will be lowered gently down to the surface using a sky crane descent stage. Travelling at human walking speed, the rover is expected to touch down at about 12.55am.

Scientists prepared for ‘most challenging’ landing

With its steep cliffs, sand dunes and boulder fields, the Jezero Crater, which scientists believe may once have been a lake, poses a particular threat to the mission’s success.

"Perseverance is Nasa's most ambitious Mars rover mission yet," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington. "The landing team will have its hands full getting us to Jezero Crater – the most challenging Martian terrain ever targeted for a landing."

Only half the previous attempts to land on Mars were successful, with the high temperatures of re-entry, lower gravity and rough terrain testing spacecraft engineering to its limits.

But despite the scale of the challenge, engineers and scientists at the JPL are hopeful.

Deputy project manager for the mission at JPL, Jennifer Trosper, said: “No Mars landing is guaranteed, but we have been preparing for a decade to put this rover’s wheels down on the surface of Mars and get to work.”

Why persevere? 

This February 10, 2021 image of Mars taken by the UAE's Hope probe shows Mars. The spacecraft now circles the Red Planet. Courtesy: Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre

An image of Mars taken from the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. NASA / AP

A full Mars. In this image the massive volcano Olympus Mons is clearly visible upper left of centre, while at centre are the three Tharsis Montes volcanoes. All these volcanoes are believed to be extinct. Mars is often host to white clouds of water ice crystals and experiences seasonal dust storms that can cover the entire planet.

In this handout photograph received from the Indian Space Research Organisation on September 30, 2014, the planet Mars is seen in an image taken by the ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft. AFP / ISRO

Perseverance will search a particularly ancient area of Mars for evidence of past life, helping to pave the way for future human exploration and even colonisation.

Alongside a suite of advanced sensors and instruments, the rover is also carrying the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, a small craft similar to a drone, that will attempt to carry out the first powered flight on the planet to survey more of its surface.

Perseverance will also collect samples from the Martian surface and eventually return them to Earth for the first time, with the help of a later mission.