Hyperdrive
NASA Nails Historic Mars Landing in Hunt for Ancient Life
- Rover touches down in boulder-strewn crater in risky maneuver
- Craft carries helicopter to try first flight on another planet
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NASA successfully landed its largest and most sophisticated science rover on Mars, as the spacecraft Perseverance touched down in an ancient river delta that may contain signs of whether the planet ever harbored microbial life.
Cheers erupted at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which oversees the agency’s rover fleet, when flight controllers received a signal Thursday at about 3:55 p.m. Eastern time that the rover had landed. Perseverance had traveled 292 million miles (470 million kilometers) since launching July 30 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.