LIVE VIDEO: Mars Rover Perseverance Touches Down

NBC News reports:

The car-size rover, which launched in July 2020, is aiming to touch down on Mars on Thursday. If successful, Perseverance will become NASA’s fifth rover to land on the red planet and will kick off the agency’s most ambitious mission yet to examine whether life ever existed on Mars.

Like its predecessor, Curiosity, the Perseverance rover’s descent to the Martian surface has been dubbed the “seven minutes of terror.” This is because a complex sequence of programmed events must occur at precise times in order for the landing to be successful.

And because of limits with deep-space communication, engineers in NASA’s mission control may not be able to follow along in real time.

Read the full article. Clips below are already live.

Today’s the day. Trip to Mars, 99.9% complete. The most dangerous part comes last: the final seven minutes.

Watch my landing live starting at 11:15 a.m. PST / 2:15 p.m. EST / 19:15 UTC. #CountdownToMarshttps://t.co/EeLjRU9D3Z

— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 18, 2021