Perseverance’s landing sequence was anything but easy. The landing involved several steps, each of which had to be executed perfectly for a safe landing – and the geeks at NASA nailed it! Here is a video breakdown of the landing.
Here are the steps it took to land Perseverance on Mars.
- Cruise stage separation (10 min).
- Enter the Mars atmosphere (0 min.)
- Perseverance reaches its maximum heating during entry (80 sec.)
- Parachute deploys (240 sec.)
- Heat shield separates (260 sec.)
- Radar locks in the landing zone (290 sec.)
- Backshell separates (360 sec.)
- Rockets fire during descent
- Perseverance rover separates and begins lowering to the ground via the Sky Crane.
- Perseverance touches the ground.
- The Sky Crane flies away.