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And we’re leaving. NASA media officer Veronica McGregor presents today’s event.
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When we get started, you can see the paperwork in the video player at the top of the blog, now enabled for live coverage.
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The press conference and questions and answers are expected to begin in about 15 minutes. We will have a live video playback right here on the live blog.
If you’re just up to date on coverage of yesterday’s momentous landing, read the coverage of our science correspondent Natalie Grover starting Thursday:
NASA’s exploratory scientist Perseverance, the most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever sent to another world, crossed the Martian atmosphere on Thursday and landed safely on the ground of a vast crater, the first stop in the search for traces of ancient microbial life on the red planet. .
Officials at the NASA jet propulsion laboratory mission near Los Angeles erupted in applause and applause as radio signals confirmed that the six-wheeled rover had survived its dangerous descent and had reached its target area within the Jezero crater, where there was a missing Martian lake.

This NASA photo shows members of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team observing mission control as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft landed on Mars, February 18, 2021, at the Propulsion Laboratory to NASA in Pasadena, California Photo: Bill Ingalls / NASA / AFP / Getty Images
The robotic vehicle sailed through space for nearly seven months, covering 472 m of kilometers before piercing the Martian atmosphere at 19,000 km / h to begin its approach to the touchdown on the planet’s surface.
The self-guided descent and landing of the spacecraft during a complex series of maneuvers that NASA called “the seven minutes of terror” is the most elaborate and challenging feat in the annals of robotic spacecraft.
Read the full piece here:
Updated
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Our image editors created a gallery of the best moments of the Perseverance landing:
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NASA will host the Perseverance Rover press conference
Members of the Space and Aeronautical Administration (NASA) team who put a rover on Mars on Thursday are preparing to host a press conference and answer questions about the mission.
The rover, ultimately called Perseverance or Percy, is on Mars to look for signs of ancient life and collect samples for a future mission. Approximately the size of a car, the wheeled rover is equipped with cameras, microphones, drills and even a small helicopter.
Natalie Grover, Guardian’s science correspondent, reports on Percy’s mission:
Previous missions to Mars, including Curiosity and Opportunity, suggested that Mars was once a humid planet with an environment likely to have supported life billions of years ago. Astrobiologists hope the latter mission may offer some evidence to show whether this was the case.
NASA scientists seem to feel that they may be passionately close to a discovery that could change the way we view the universe and our home. Here was the scene in the control room near Los Angeles just before 1pm local time on Thursday, when Percy’s safe contact on Mars was confirmed:
The robotic vehicle sailed through space for nearly seven months, covering 472 m of kilometers before piercing the Martian atmosphere at 19,000 km / h to begin its focus on touchdown on the planet’s surface.
Thank you for joining our live coverage.