Replace for four p.m. ET: NASA’s Perseverance rover has efficiently touched down on Mars! Read the full story here.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is scheduled to the touch down on the Purple Planet at the moment (Feb. 18) at three:55 p.m. EST (2055 GMT) — or not less than that is when NASA will discover out if it landed.
However by the point Earthlings hear from Perseverance for the primary time since the landing attempt, the rover may have already spent not less than 11 minutes hanging out on the floor of Mars. That is as a result of it at present takes radio indicators about 11 minutes, 22 seconds to journey between Earth and Mars, NASA said in a statement.
So, Perseverance’s precise ETA, the time that it’s alleged to land in Jezero Crater, is three:44 p.m. EST (2044 GMT). However we can’t know the precise time of touchdown — or whether or not the rover arrived intact — till 11 minutes, 22 seconds after the actual fact.
You can watch the Mars landing live here and on House.com’s homepage, courtesy of NASA, starting at 2:15 p.m. EST (1915 GMT). The touchdown is predicted at three:55 p.m. EST (2055 GMT).
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Stay updates: NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover mission
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On the time of Perseverance’s touchdown try, Mars can be about 127 million miles (205 million kilometers) from Earth, NASA stated in a mission description. (The planet’s distance from Earth adjustments as the 2 planets revolve across the solar of their respective orbits.)
The radio indicators that NASA makes use of to speak with Perseverance and different missions journey on the pace of sunshine, which is about 670,616,629 mph (1,079,252,848 kph). This cosmic pace restrict means mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) can not instantaneously talk with or function the rover — or every other distant spacecraft, for that matter.
Throughout the rover’s touchdown, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will act as a relay for lander radio communications. The orbiter will pay attention for messages from Perseverance and ship data again to NASA’s Deep House Community of antennas on Earth.
Associated: How a fleet of spacecraft will watch NASA’s Perseverance rover land on Mars
Visit Space.com at the moment for full protection of the Perseverance Mars rover’s touchdown on the Purple Planet.
E mail Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@area.com or comply with her @hannekescience. Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Fb.
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