Success! There’s a New Rover on Mars!

Today’s Perseverance rover landing on Mars was a success! There are now two new robots on Mars—Perseverance and the Ingenuity helicopter it brought along—which touched down in Jezero Crater at 3:44 p.m. EST / 20:44 UTC today, February 18. The confirmation signal was received here on Earth, 127 million miles away, 11 minutes and 21 seconds later at 3:55 p.m. EST. The first low-resolution greyscale images from the rover’s hazard avoidance cameras arrived shortly after that, showing views of the ground in front and behind Perseverance. I colorized them to somewhat approximate natural Mars color (seen below). Better ones will be coming soon to the Mars 2020 raw image page, but for now these are our first views from inside Jezero Crater! Congratulations to NASA, JPL, and the Mars 2020 EDL team!

First image from the hazard camera on NASA’s Perseverance rover. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Jason Major)
Second image from the hazard camera on NASA’s Perseverance rover. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Jason Major)