‘Perseverance’, spacecraft of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has safely landed on Mars after a journey of 47 crore miles. NASA confirmed the landing at 3:55 a.m. on Thursday (February 18). BBC and CNN reported.
According to NASA, Perseverance sent the first image after landing. The place to touch the surface of the spacecraft rover is Jezero Crater. The picture showed the landing of the rover there.
"The spacecraft gave us great news," said Matt Wallace, the mission's deputy project manager. That's great!
Engineers erupted in excitement at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mission Center in Pasadena, California, shortly after the news of Perseverance landing on Mars was confirmed.
This six-wheeled self-propelled vehicle began its journey from Earth seven months ago. This successful landing of Perseverance created an unprecedented opportunity to find out if there was any life on Mars in the past. The spacecraft will spend two years there.
From satellite images, scientists have speculated that at one time there was a huge lake in the Jezero Crater. They thought the lake had plenty of water and probably life.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden congratulated NASA scientists on the news of the safe landing of Perseverance on the red planet.
Congratulations to NASA and those who worked hard to make this historic landing possible, he said. Today it has been proven once again that nothing is impossible to achieve through the power of science and the efforts of the Americans.
Fourteen attempts have been made to land the spacecraft on Mars. Of these, eight have been successful and all of them were American missions. However, once in 1999, NASA's Mars mission failed.