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NASA successfully landed its fifth robotic rover, Perseverance, on the surface of Mars on Thursday after its six-month voyage from Earth.

Highlights

• The rover is the most technologically advanced robot NASA has ever sent to Mars.
• The agency aims to spend nearly two years using it to explore the surface.
• NASA spent about $2.4 billion to build and launch the Perseverance mission, with another $300 million in costs expected for landing and operating the rover on the Mars surface.
• The rover, about the size of a small car, weighs about 1 ton and is 10 feet long by 9 feet wide by 7 feet tall.

Other missions to Mars

Another Mars mission, the UAE’s Al Amal (Hope)–the Arab world’s first such mission–entered the Martian orbit last week. However, this is an orbital mission and does not involve landing on the planet’s surface. Apart from the UAE, China also launched a Mars mission during the July-August window.

What will the Perseverance rover do on Mars?

• Perseverance will spend one Mars year (two years on Earth) on the planet during which it will explore the landing site region.
• The Jezero crater where it will land was once the site of an ancient river delta (scientists know this because of evidence collected during previous landed and orbital missions that point to wet conditions on the planet billions of years ago).
• If Mars once harboured a warmer atmosphere enabling water to flow in its ancient past (3.5-3.8 billion years ago), and if microbial life existed on it, it is possible that it exists in “special regions” even today.
• The rover is carrying with it seven instruments, which include an advanced camera system with the ability to zoom, a SuperCam, which is an instrument that will provide imaging and chemical composition analysis and a spectrometer.
• One of the most interesting instruments aboard the rover, however, is called MOXIE, which will produce oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide.
• If this instrument is successful, then future astronauts (as of now, no human has kept foot on Mars) can use it to burn rocket fuel for returning to Earth.
• The rover will also carry Ingenuity, the first helicopter to fly on Mars. 

Source: PIB