Perseverance Rover lands on Mars [video]

Also on https://www.twitch.tv/nasa

They were showing off a model of the rover, I did not realize just how large this one is!

You can also watch an EDL visualization in your browser: https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/mars2020/#/home

And read about how it will use Terrain Relative Navigation to find a safe landing spot: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/a-neil-armstrong-for-mars-land...

Perseverance is phenomenally complex, its Sample Caching System alone contains 3,000+ parts and two robotic arms. So exited for all the sciencing this nuclear-powered, sample-drilling, laser-zapping behemoth can do when it joins its friends on the only planet (known) to be inhabited solely by robots.

Edit: Percy is about to release its two 77 kg Cruise Mass Balance Devices (is this what NASA calls 'weights'?) to setup the right lift-to-drag ratio for entry. Mars InSight will be listening for the 14,000 km/hr impacts of these weights, providing useful calibration data. We wrote about this in this week's issue of our space-related newsletter, Orbital Index - https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2021-02-17-Issue-104/

How much more time for EDL? Can't find that information anywhere!

Probably around 20-30 minutes after it's landed. Perseverance needs to lock onto sattelites that are part of the Deep Space Network for the bandwidth required to send media. It also takes 22 minutes to send a command and get a response back.

Watching the stream, it's striking the difference in employee age between NASA and SpaceX. I won't speculate on the reasons, but I wish the best to the Perseverance team!