NASA's Perseverance rover successfully lands on Mars

Watching NASA’s Perseverance rover mission control you could feel the tension through the screen as the rover entered the 7 minutes of terror landing phase. Once again though, as was the case for NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover in 2012, Perseverance nailed the landing and sent back its first picture after landing at 3:55 p.m. EST.

In news release acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said “this landing is one of those pivotal moments for NASA, the United States, and space exploration globally – when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks. The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission embodies our nation’s spirit of persevering even in the most challenging of situations, inspiring, and advancing science and exploration. The mission itself personifies the human ideal of persevering toward the future and will help us prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet in the 2030s.”