How to Watch a Rover Landing
NASA’s last Mars rover launched into space last summer, and after nearly seven months of space travel, it is making its final descent to the Red Planet. The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will land on Mars on Thursday, February 18th for a live experience. Here’s how.
How to watch a rover landing
The Mars Perseverance rover is expected to land around 3:55 pm ET Thursday, and you can find the official live feed of the event starting at 2:15 pm ET on NASA Television and on NASA’s website .
The agency will also be streaming live onYouTube (plusa Spanish-language channel ) and you can find more information and comments on all of its social media accounts:
Finally, you can tune in to a 360-degree live flight control stream via NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube channel or the flight control audio stream on JPLraw.
Social media event
NASA is also hosting the #CountdowntoMars Landing event on Facebook, where you can watch live coverage, chat with other rover enthusiasts, and participate in Q&A with NASA team members.
What to expect upon landing
Perseverance is expected to take about seven minutes to descend on its own from the upper atmosphere of Mars to its landing site at Jezero Crater, but it takes just over 11 minutes for the signal from the rover to reach the mission control center on Earth.
This means that by the time we know Perseverance is coming down, it will (hopefully) land safely on Mars. NASA will receive one radio signal when the descent begins and expects to receive another signal indicating a landing shortly before 4:00 pm ET .