NASA's science rover Perseverance, the most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever sent to another planet, streaked through the Martian atmosphere on Thursday and landed safely on the floor of a vast crater, its first stop on a search for traces of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet.
Mission managers at the U.S. space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles burst into applause, cheers and fist-bumps as radio beacons signaled that the six-wheeled rover had survived its perilous descent and arrived within its target zone inside Jezero Crater, site of a long-vanished Martian lake bed.
"Touchdown confirmed," Swati Mohan, the lead guidance and operations specialist announced from the control room. "Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars."