LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – NASA scientists on Friday unveiled stunning images from the perfect landing of Mars’ rover Perseverance, including a selfie of the six-wheeled vehicle hanging just above the surface of the red planet moments before touch.
The color photograph, which will likely become an instant classic among the memorable images of the history of space flight, was captured by a camera mounted on the rocket-propelled descent stage just above the rover while the car-sized spacecraft was being built went down to Martian earth on Thursday.
The image was revealed by mission managers during an online broadcast of news from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), near Los Angeles, less than 24 hours after landing.
The image, looking down at the rover, shows the entire vehicle suspended from three uncoiled cables from the sky crane, along with an “umbilical” communications cable. Dust whirlwinds thrown by crane rocket propellants are also visible.
A few seconds later, the rover landed gently on its wheels, its ties were cut and the sky crane, with the work done, flew out to crash into a safe distance, though not before the photos and other data collected during the descent were transmitted to the rover for safekeeping.
The image of the hanging science lab, which draws attention for its clarity and sense of motion, marks the first close-up photo of a space probe landing on Mars or any planet beyond Earth.
“This is something we’ve never seen before,” said Aaron Stehura, deputy director of the mission’s landing and landing team, who described himself and his colleagues as “surprised” when they went see the image for the first time.
INSTANTLY ICONIC
Adam Steltzner, chief engineer of the JPL’s Perseverance project, said the image seemed instantly iconic, comparable to the shooting of Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin standing on the moon in 1969 or images of Saturn the 1980 Voyager 1 spacecraft.
He said the viewer is connected to an iconic moment that represents years of work by thousands of people.
“They take you to the surface of Mars. You are sitting there, seven meters from the surface of the rover, looking down, ”he said. “It’s absolutely exciting and evokes those other images of our experience as human beings moving into our solar system.”
The image was taken at the end of the so-called “seven-minute horror” descent sequence that took Perseverance from the top of Mars ’atmosphere, traveling at 12,000 miles per hour, to a gentle touchdown on the land of a vast basin called the Jezero crater.
Next week, NASA expects to present more photos and videos, some possibly with audio, taken by the six cameras attached to the descending spacecraft, which show more of the maneuvers of the sky crane, as well as the deployment of supersonic parachutes than the they preceded.
Pauline Hwang, manager of the strategic mission, said the rover itself “is doing a great job and is healthy on the surface of Mars and remains highly functional and impressive.”
The vehicle landed about two kilometers from high cliffs at the base of an ancient river delta carved into the corner of the crater billions of years ago, when Mars was warmer, wetter and presumably hospitable. for life.
Scientists say the site is ideal for pursuing Perseverance’s main goal: to look for fossilized remains of microbial life preserved in sediments that are believed to have been deposited around the delta and the missing lake it fed.
Perforated rock samples from the Martian soil must be stored on the surface for eventual recovery and delivery to Earth through two future robotic missions to the red planet, as early as 2031.
Another color photo released Friday, captured moments after the rover’s arrival, shows a rocky expanse of terrain around the landing site and what appear to be the cliffs of the delta in the distance.
The mission’s surface team will spend the next few days and weeks untying, deploying and testing the vehicle’s robot arm, communication antennas and other equipment, aligning the instruments and updating the rover’s software, Hwang said.
He said it would be about nine “suns”, or Martian days, before the rover is ready for its first test.
One of Perseverance’s tasks before embarking on his search for signs of microbial life will be to deploy a miniature helicopter that took him to Mars for an unprecedented extraterrestrial test flight. But Hwang said that effort was still about two months away.
Reports by Steve Gorman; Edited by Daniel Wallis