17:53
When we get started, you can follow the procedures in the video player above the blog, now enabled for live coverage.
17:49
The press conference and the questions and answers are expected to start in about 15 minutes. We will have a live video stream right here on the live blog.
If you’re just up to date on yesterday’s important landing, read our scientific correspondent Natalie Grover on Thursday:
Perseverance, NASA’s scientific researcher, the most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever sent to another world, crossed the Martian atmosphere on Thursday and landed safely on the floor of a vast crater, his first stop in search of traces of ancient microbial life on the red planet. .
Mission managers at NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory near Los Angeles erupted in applause and cheers as radio signals confirmed that the six-wheeled rover survived its dangerous descent and reached the target area inside Jezero Crater, the site a long-lost Martian lake bed.

This NASA photo shows members of the NASA Rover Perseverance Mars team tracking control of the mission as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully hit Mars on February 18, 2021, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Photo: Bill Ingalls / NASA / AFP / Getty Images
The robotic vehicle sailed through space for nearly seven months, covering 472m km before breaking through the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 mph (19,000 km / h) to begin its approach to the planet’s touchdown.
The descent and self-guided landing of the spacecraft during a complex series of maoeuvre that NASA called “the seven minutes of terror” is the most elaborate and challenging feat in the annals of robotic spacecraft.
Read the full song here:
Updated
17:45
Our image editors have created a gallery with the best moments of the Perseverance landing:
16:45
NASA will host the Perseverance rover press conference
Members of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) team that put a rover on Mars on Thursday are preparing to host a press conference and answer questions about the mission.
The rover, abbreviated Perseverance or Percy, is on Mars to look for signs of ancient life and collect evidence to be returned by a future mission. Approximately the size of a car, the wheeled rover is equipped with cameras, microphones, drills and even a small helicopter.
Tutor Natalie Grover’s scientific correspondent reports on Percy’s mission:
Previous missions to Mars, including Curiosity and Opportunity, have suggested that Mars was once a humid planet, with an environment that would probably have supported life billions of years ago. Astrobiologists hope that this latest mission can provide some evidence to prove that was the case.
NASA scientists seem to feel that they may be close to a discovery that could change the way we see the universe and our home in it. Here is the scene in the control room near Los Angeles, just before 1:00 p.m., local time, Thursday, when Percy’s safe touchdown on Mars was confirmed:
The robot sailed through space for nearly seven months, covering 472 m km, before breaking through the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 mph (19,000 km / h) to begin its approach to the planet’s surface.
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