Perseverance landing – the sky crane manoeuvre
Perseverance landing – the sky crane manoeuvre
The Perseverance rover, which weighs more than a tonne and is suspended with three nylon cords, will be precisely lowered by a ‘sky crane’ onto its landing site in Jezero Crater from a height of 7.6 metres at the end of a seven-minute descent phase. A landing manoeuvre with airbags, a procedure used for previous landings on Mars, is no longer practical due to the rover’s mass. NASA’s predecessor rover, Curiosity, also landed safely in Gale Crater in 2012 using this new procedure. The procedure has been improved for the Mars 2020 mission.
