About Space Only's video: Perseverance Rover s Landing on Mars

NASA has released first-of-its-kind imagery collected from the Perseverance rover’s descent stage as it landed on the surface of Mars, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. From the moment of parachute inflation, the camera system covers the entirety of the descent process, showing some of the rover’s intense ride to the surface of Mars’ Jezero Crater. The footage from high definition cameras aboard the spacecraft starts 11 kilometers (7 miles) above Jezero Crater, shows the supersonic deployment of the most massive parachute ever sent to another world, and ends with the rover’s touch down in Jezero Crater. Five commercial off-the-shelf cameras located on three different spacecraft components collected the imagery. Two cameras on the back shell, which encapsulated the rover on its journey, took pictures of the parachute inflating. A camera on the descent stage provided a downward view — including the top of the rover — while two on the rover chassis offered both upward and downward perspectives. Perseverance is the fifth rover the agency has landed on the Red Planet. The rover team continues its initial inspection of Perseverance’s systems and its immediate surroundings. A key objective of Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith. Footage includes: 1. Rover descent cam (view from belly of the rover looking down) 2. Parachute up-view cam (02:39) 3. Descent stage down-look cam (from the descent stage looking down at the rover) (02:56) 4. Parachute up-view cam 2 (03:21) 5. Rover up-look camera (from the rover looking up toward the descent stage) (03:29) 6. Parachute deploy slowed to 30% speed (03:57) Credit: NASA