NASA scientists celebrate Perseverance rover's successful Mars landing

The cheers of success were exciting to hear. A team of scientists that had worked eight years to land a rover named "Perseverance" on Mars in a way that's never been done before.

At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists called the much-anticipated touchdown on the red planet a perfect landing.

For the scientists in a second-floor control room at JPL, this was the first time they were all in a room together because of the pandemic. That may have added to the excitement.

On that idea of working eight years on this project, Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said, "That’s a good chunk of your life and career to put into something that in 7-minutes you’re going to succeed or not.

That "7-minutes of Terror" as they call it can be gutwrenching. That’s the time it takes for the craft to leave the Martian atmosphere and careen toward and then and on Mars.

Team member Jackie Sly says, "It was so exciting. I’m so happy for us... it was a moment of relief."

And that’s understandable when you consider the many challenges this team had to overcome. Challenges stemming from hardware problems, technical innovations and then in March, the pandemic came along, complicating matters.

As reporters, crews and others worked in a large tent, all eyes became focused on Acting Administrator Jurczyk. President Joe Biden then went onto congratulate all involved. We don’t know the President’s specific words, but we know after his "Hello, Mr. President" greeting, there was a short give-and-take, in which Jurczyk said, "Absolutely Sir. That’s a lot of what we do is show the United States and countries around the world what is possible. And we did that again today!"

They did. Scientists say that landing - a first of its kind - was spectacular.

It was in a safe area where there may be fossils of ancient microbial life. That dry-landing spot was believed to be once a lake. Acting administrator Jurczyk said "it went flawlessly."

Meanwhile, Associate Administrator Dr. Thomas H. Zurbuchen were beaming with pride.

He said, "This I would say is one of the top five accomplishments of science and NASA."

He added, "This is the first leg of the first roundtrip to our planet. It’s going to pick up those samples and bring them back. So, absolutely, it’s a historic achievement."

Another team member Bethany Hellmann said, there’s a helicopter attached to the belly of the rover that will be able to make flights over Mars and study the planet from above.

There also many cameras on board Perseverance. They are for navigation, viewing, getting microscopic images from many meters away and more.

Bethany Hellmann says, "There’s that big cyclops eye. That’s cool. There’s actually a camera in there to get remote microscopic images but also spectrometers including a laser that lets us fire at a rock and look at the chemistry of the rocks inside."

"Perseverance" is on Mars and on the job!

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