On a beautiful morning on the space coast of Florida, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket flawlessly launched NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover on a seven month trip to the red planet.
It was the third launch in less than two weeks that is sending a record trio of spacecraft to Mars including the Hope orbiter from the United Arab Emirates, China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter, lander and rover, and NASA’s Perseverance rover with its Ingenuity helicopter.
An hour after the launch NASA reported that a key milestone had been accomplished with the spacecraft separating from the rocket second stage and Perseverance was “officially” on its way to Mars.
The final planned major event of the day was the “acquisition of signal” from the spacecraft, basically the spacecraft calling home, something NASA just reported as having been achieved.
