NASA brilliantly succeeded Thursday in landing its Perseverance rover on Mars, the fifth vehicle only to have made the trip without a hitch, but the first to post the objective of finding, in the years to come, proof of past life on the planet red.

“Landing confirmed!

», Exclaimed at the scheduled time, 9:55 pm in Paris, Swati Mohan, in charge of operations control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California.

Cries of joy echoed in the control room, even if the teams present were fewer than usual because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Perseverance traveled more than 470 million kilometers in 203 days.

The landing maneuver was ultra-perilous and the site chosen, the Jezero crater, the most risky ever attempted, because of its relief.

Proof that the mission is also the result of international cooperation: French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country designed one of the rover's many scientific instruments, attended the landing at the Paris headquarters of the National Studies Center space (Cnes). 

Back, in pictures, on this historic evening, in Paris, in Pasadena in California, and on the planet Mars.


Director:

Olivier JUSZCZAK

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