This is the first 360-degree panorama taken by Mastcam-Z, a zoomable pair of cameras aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. The panorama was stitched together on Earth from 142 individual images taken on Sol 3, the third Martian day of the mission (Feb. 21, 2021).
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ASU

​To read the story please go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-perseverance-rover-gives-high-definition-panoramic-view-of-landing-site

For more information about Perseverance
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance mission captured thrilling footage of its rover landing in Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.
 
The real footage in this video was captured by several cameras that are part of the rover's entry, descent, and landing suite.
 
The views include a camera looking down from the spacecraft's descent stage (a kind of rocket-powered jet pack that helps fly the rover to its landing site), a camera on the rover looking up at the descent stage, a camera on the top of the aeroshell (a capsule protecting the rover) looking up at that parachute, and a camera on the bottom of the rover looking down at the Martian surface.
 
The audio embedded in the video comes from the mission control call-outs during entry, descent, and landing.

​For more information about Perseverance, visit
​https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ 

​Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Wow…that was just Amazing, the members of NASA’s Mars exploration team have done it again, just absolutely awesome!!!

Please go to the story on the NASA website link at:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/touchdown-nasas-mars-perseverance-rover-safely-lands-on-red-planet

Members of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team watch in mission control as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life.
 
The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls
​

NASA is inviting the public to take part in virtual activities and events as the agency’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover nears entry, descent, and landing on the Red Planet, with touchdown scheduled for approximately 3:55 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 18.

Australian (AEST) Friday 19th at 6.55am Feb.19th
 
Live coverage and landing commentary from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will begin at 2:15 p.m. on the NASA TV Public Channeland the agency’s website, as well as the NASA App, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch, Daily Motion, and THETA.TV.

During landing, the rover will plunge through the thin Martian atmosphere at more than 12,000 mph (about 20,000 kph). A parachute and powered descent will slow the rover down to about 2 mph (3 kph). During what is known as the sky crane maneuver, the descent stage will lower the rover on three cables to land softly on six wheels at Jezero Crater.
 
Perseverance also is carrying a technology experiment – the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter – that will attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.
 
“If there’s one thing we know, it’s that landing on Mars is never easy,” said NASA Associate Administrator for Communications Marc Etkind. “But as NASA’s fifth Mars rover, Perseverance has an extraordinary engineering pedigree and mission team. We are excited to invite the entire world to share this exciting event with us!”
NASA is offering many ways for the public to participate and stay up to date on landing information, mission highlights, and interaction opportunities.
 
To read more of this story and go to the many links please go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invites-public-to-share-thrill-of-mars-perseverance-rover-landing
 
For more about Perseverance:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020
and
https://nasa.gov/perseverance
For more about Ingenuity:
https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter

NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Landing Animations
This video depicts key events during entry, descent, and landing that will occur when NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars February 18, 2021.
 
My other Mars blogs are at: http://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog/archives/07-2020

~ Thursday 18th February 2021 ~ 
ABC Science writer Genelle Weule has written an excellent article on Mars today,
please go to the link below to read all about this incredible mission to the red planet by NASA.
 
NASA's Perseverance rover gears up to land on Mars in 'seven minutes of terror'
 
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-02-18/mars-perseverance-rover-nasa-seven-minutes-of-terror-landing/13164886
​

Just one day after the UAE ‘Hope Probe’ went into orbit about Mars the Chinese spacecraft named ‘Tianwen -1’ translated as ‘Heavenly Questions’ has gone into the Martian orbit about the planet. It includes and orbiter, lander and a Mars rover.
 
To read more about China’s Mars mission in English please go to:
http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/index.html
To read more about China’s Mars mission in Chinese please go to:
http://www.cnsa.gov.cn
 
To read see and read all about the first image taken by the spacecraft please go to:
http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/n6465652/n6465653/c6811227/content.html
 
More information on the mission at:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianwen-1
 
Now for something different an excellent podcast from South China Morning Post:
China's Tianwen-1 Mars mission and its fast-growing space industry
 
SCMP journalist Nadeem Shad speaks with freelance space journalist and China space industry expert Andrew Jones about the Tianwen-1 mission to Mars, and the audacious plan to deliver a vehicle to the Martian surface. Hear how the other missions being sent by NASA and the United Arab Emirates are not a new 'space race', and how it might just take FBI permission to allow an American spacecraft to communicate with a Chinese one.
 
Hear also why 2020 was one of the busiest years in China's history of space travel - and how it is embracing the commercial market to private companies keen to launch vehicles into space. #scmppodcasts​

On the 9th February the UAE Hope Martian Probe entered into a Mars orbit Insertion and is now safely orbiting the red planet after a seven-month journey from Earth.
 
This is an incredible achievement for such a small country and only the fifth country to have done so, the Hope Probe will study the Martian atmosphere and climate and in the future the UAE Space Agency plan to make a Mars human settlement on the planet.
 
To find more about the mission please go to the following links:
https://www.emiratesmarsmission.ae
 
To follow the live tracks of the Hope Probe go to:
https://www.emiratesmarsmission.ae/track-the-hope-probe-live/