Space News thread

[OhOh]

how deep any water ice is buried under ground.

Presumably they will aim to land near the spot where the buried ice is closest to the surface. If in fact they can choose the landing spot!

[harrybarracuda]

Presumably they will aim to land near the spot where the buried ice is closest to the surface. If in fact they can choose the landing spot!

They had some technologies this time that weren't available before. It wasn't quite as hit and hope as you might think. Here's a really good animation showing how it all worked.

There was doubtless a decent dose of relief mixed in with the excitement, for success today was far from guaranteed. Over the decades, only about half of Mars surface missions have touched down safely. And Perseverance's landing site on Jezero's floor, which features hazards such as cliffs, sand dunes and boulder fields, was the toughest ever targeted by a Mars mission, NASA officials have said.
Indeed, this dangerous terrain required Perseverance to make the most precise Red Planet touchdown ever. The rover's landing ellipse was just 4.8 miles long by 4.1 miles wide (7.7 by 6.6 kilometers), compared to 4 miles by 12 miles (7 by 12 km) for Curiosity.
Perseverance hit that target today with the aid of two new entry, descent and landing (EDL) technologies that Curiosity didn't have at its disposal. One, called "range trigger," allowed the mission to deploy its supersonic parachute at just the right moment. The other, "terrain-relative navigation," enabled Perseverance's sky crane to assess the Jezero landscape and navigate autonomously around potential hazards during the descent.
These landing technologies worked exactly as planned, guiding Perseverance to a picture-perfect touchdown on a safe, flat part of Jezero's floor, mission team members said during a post-landing news conference this afternoon.

Touchdown! NASA's Perseverance rover lands on Mars to begin hunt for signs of ancient life | Space