NASA’s Perseverance Rover Sends Back Photographs of Red Planet Written 22 February 2021
First high-resolution, color image sent back by the cameras on the underside of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover following its landing on 18 Feb. 2021. | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Reuters reported that on Friday, NASA scientists “presented striking early images from the picture-perfect landing of the Mars rover Perseverance, including a selfie of the six-wheeled vehicle dangling just above the surface of the Red Planet moments before touchdown.” The “color photograph, likely to become an instant classic among memorable images from the history of spaceflight, was snapped by a camera mounted on the rocket-powered ‘sky crane’ descent-stage just above the rover as the car-sized space vehicle was being lowered on Thursday to Martian soil.” The picture “shows the entire vehicle suspended from three cables unspooled from the sky crane, along with an ‘umbilical’ communications cord.” Seconds after the photograph was taken, “the rover was gently planted on its wheels, its tethers were severed, and the sky crane – its job completed – flew off to crash a safe distance away, though not before photos and other data collected during the descent were transmitted to the rover for safekeeping.”
Full Story (Reuters)