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Added on the 11/09/2021 15:24:09 - Copyright : AFP EN
After a seven-month journey, NASA's Perseverance rover prepares to touch down on Mars on Thursday after first negotiating a risky landing procedure that will mark the start of its multi-year search for signs of ancient microbial life. "We know Mars had water at one point, we know that it was habitable, it could have had life at one point. That's why we're going back and looking for it," Perseverance deputy project manager, Jennifer Trosper, tells AFPTV.
A vehicle filled with cameras, microphones, drills, and lasers is part of an ambitious long-term project to bring rock samples from Mars to Earth for analysis in search of life.
China’s first Mars landing follows its launch last month of the main section of what will be a permanent space station and a mission that brought back rocks from the moon late last year.
NASA's latest rover Perseverance launches for Mars, blasting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on schedule.
NASA's most advanced Mars rover, Perseverance, will launch from Earth on July 30 on a mission to seek out signs of ancient microbial life on what was once a river delta three-and-a-half billion years ago.