JPL Control Room - Perseverance Touchdown
author: Nasa/JPL-Caltech/Novapix
reference: e-son27-64018
Image Size 300 DPI: 34 * 18 cm
Members of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission were jubilant on Feb. 18, 2021, after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars. They are in Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.