How to Watch the Mars Rover Landing

NASA’s latest Mars rover launched into space last summer, and after nearly seven months of space travel it’s now on its final descent to the Red Planet. The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will land on Mars on Friday, February 19, and you can watch the whole thing live. Here’s how.

How to watch the Mars rover landing

The Mars Perseverance rover is expected to touch down around 7:55 a.m. AEDT on Friday, and you can find the official live coverage of the event starting at 6:15 a.m. AEDT on NASA TV and NASA’s website.

The agency will also host a live stream on YouTube (plus a Spanish-language feed), and you can find additional coverage and commentary on all of its social media accounts:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitch

Finally, you can tune into a 360-degree live stream of mission control via the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube channel or the mission control audio feed on JPLraw.

[referenced id=”930372″ url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/06/take-a-virtual-drive-in-a-mars-rover/” thumb=”https://www.gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/06/24/n6ma7oxae5jinzdluju4-300×169.jpg” title=”Take a Virtual Drive in a Mars Rover” excerpt=”If you’ve ever aspired to be a real-life Mark Watney — collecting samples of rocks and dirt on Mars — now is your chance. With NASA’s AI4Mars project, you can take a virtual trip around the red planet in the Curiosity rover.”]

Social media event

NASA is also hosting its #CountdowntoMars Landing event on Facebook, where you can watch the coverage, connect with other rover enthusiasts and participate in a Q&A with NASA team members.

What to expect with the landing

Perseverance is expected to take about seven minutes for its self-guided descent from the top of Mars’ atmosphere to its landing spot in the Jezero Crater — but it takes just over 11 minutes for the signal from the rover to reach mission control on Earth.

That means that by the time we know that Perseverance is on its way down, it will (hopefully) have already landed safely on Mars. NASA will receive one radio signal when the descent begins and expects to receive another indicating landing just before 8:00 a.m. AEDT.