Perseverance touches down on Mars - 24th February 2021

NASA's Perseverance rover has touched down on Mars following a 7 month journey.

The automated vehicle is now all set to embark on its mission of hunting for traces of ancient microbial life.

Landing in the Jezero Crater in Mars's northern hemisphere, Perseverance soon began transmitting images of the area back to Earth. The crater is thought to have been the site of a river connected to a lake. With evidence of water, the idea of Mars supporting life is more compelling.

The craft is armed with an array of cutting edge technology to help it achieve its goals. It will utilise new instruments to scan for organic matter and gather rock samples. It will also deploy the first ever off-world helicopter drone, which NASA scientist Steve Jurcyzk is particularly excited about.

Steve Jurczyk: "This mission also has technology on it. One of the cool things is the Ingenuity helicopter. It's, it's an experiment on this mission. But if it's successful, we can use it as an observation, science observation platform by putting instruments on it, and also use it as a scout for future rover missions."

MiMi Aung oversees the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Project.

MiMi Aung: "This is super exciting. Know we have been working on Mars helicopter for over six years, testing and carefully designing it for operation at Mars. So what's going through my mind? Ingenuity Mars helicopter is finally at the destination that it is designed for."

Further experiments will include attempting to convert C02 to oxygen, which would be a game changer for future expeditions.

Perseverance will soon be sharing the red planet with a Chinese rover. Tianwen-1 is currently in orbit around Mars and is set to land in May.