If all goes according to plan, on February 18, the
wheeled robot the size of a small car will complete its
six-month-long, 292.5-million-mile journey and touch down safely on the Red
Planet’s surface.
Should it succeed, Perseverance will be the fifth NASA
rover ever to land on Mars. The new
rover, affectionately dubbed “Percy,” will scour the dusty, crater-strewn
planet for evidence of ancient life and prepare the way for future human
visitors.
NASA will livestream the February 18 landing on its Mars
2020 website beginning at 2:15 p.m. Eastern; the landing process is
expected to begin around 3:38. Unlike the celebratory hugs and high-fiving in
mission control after Curiosity’s landing in 2012, this year’s event will be
more subdued because of the pandemic. Crew members at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in
Pasadena, California, will be masked and limited to essential personnel to
prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
Abigail Allwood is the first woman and Australian principal investigator on a mission to Mars.(Supplied: Queensland University Of Technology)
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