Landing sequence
Landing sequence
The Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) sequence begins when the spacecraft reaches the uppermost layer of the Martian atmosphere, entering Mars’ gaseous envelope at a speed of almost 20,000 kilometres per hour. At such high speeds, the landing capsule heats up to 1300 degrees Celsius ; this means the Perseverance rover must be protected by a thick heat shield. The landing manoeuvre ends about seven minutes later, when Perseverance stands on the surface of Mars. This procedure is completely automated, as it takes more than 11 minutes to send a radio signal from Mars to Earth. By the time that the control centre at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, receives the signal that the spacecraft has entered the atmosphere, the rover will already be on the ground. Because the mission controllers do not know for so long whether everything has gone to plan and they have no influence on what happens, the EDL phase is sometimes referred to as the ‘seven minutes of terror’.
