A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover vehicle is readied for launch at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida (Source: Reuters)
NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launch live updates: NASA is set to launch its Mars Perseverance Rover on July 30 at 17:20 IST from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The main aim of the Mars Perseverance Rover is to seek signs of ancient life and collect rock and soil samples for a possible return to Earth. The duration of the mission is expected to be at least one Mars year which is equivalent to 687 days on Earth.
The Mars Perseverance Rover is expected to land on Mars on February 18, 2021, after covering a distance of 300 million miles (482.8 million kms approximately). The landing site of the rover will be the Jezero Crater on the Red Planet. This is the third launch to Mars after China’s rover-orbiter combo and a United Arab Emirates orbiter launched last week.
“We don’t know if life existed there or not. But we do know that Mars at one point in its history was habitable,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said on the eve of the launch.
How to watch the live stream:
The live stream of the Mars 2020 mission is available on NASA’s official YouTube channel.
Imagine driving on the loneliest road in the world. For the traveller, it is a cathartic experience. One can drive for hours on end without seeing another car or human being. There is the wilderness, the landscape of mountains and valleys, the open sky above and the spectacular night bejewelled by stars. Driving on Mars is a somewhat similar experience. Except there is no road. The rover can drive anywhere it chooses to, and is able to. Except no human or machine has driven on the road before. That is the rush of operating a rover on Mars.
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