Video shows NASA’s Perseverance rover landing on Mars in high-def

NASA on Monday released stunning, high-definition footage of its car-sized rover landing on the Martian surface last week, the first-time that a spacecraft’s landing on Mars has been recorded in highspeed video.

In the short clip, several cameras mounted at various points on the spacecraft chronicle the descent of the Perseverance rover as it plunges through the Martian atmosphere, deploys its parachute and jettisons its heat shield. The red, dusty Martian atmosphere comes into view as the rover gets closer to the surface. Individual rocks can be seen, as well as entire craters, as the autonomous spacecraft guided its way to a flat landing site.

Then, a whirlwind of dust, as the descent stage fires its engines, and lowers the rover onto the surface with a series of cables.

NASA also released the first-ever sound recorded on the red plant, a small whoosh — a gust of wind traveling about 11 mph, NASA estimated.

The sounds and the video “are the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, the head of NASA’s science mission directorate.

Documenting the landing, one of the most perilous parts of the mission, known as the “seven-minutes of terror,” was not central to the spacecraft’s primary goal of searching for signs of ancient, microbial life on Mars.

But it was a way to inspire future generations of explorers, NASA said, as well as give engineers feedback on how the spacecraft operated.

“We have taken everyone along with us on our journeys across the solar system to the rings of Saturn, looking back at the pale blue dot and incredible panoramas on the surface of Mars,” said Michael Watkins, the director of NASA’s Jet propulsion Laboratory. “This is the first time we’ve been able to actually capture an event like the landing of a spacecraft on Mars. And these are pretty cool videos. And we will learn something, by looking at the performance of the vehicle in these videos, but a lot of it is also to bring you along on our journey.”

Because the atmospheric conditions are so different on Mars, NASA’s engineers can’t test the landing systems on Earth. “So this is the first time we’ve had a chance as engineers to actually see what we designed,” said Matt Wallace, the deputy project manager. “It’s hard for me to express just how emotional and how exciting it was for everybody.”