Catalog Page for PIA24312

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PIA24312: Perseverance Rover's Cruise Stage Separates (Illustration)

This illustration shows NASA's Perseverance rover casting off its spacecraft's cruise stage, minutes before entering the Martian atmosphere.

Mission:	Mars 2020 Rover
Spacecraft:	Perseverance
Product Size:	10240 x 5760 pixels (w x h)
Produced By:	JPL
Full-Res TIFF:	PIA24312.tif (60.99 MB)
Full-Res JPEG:	PIA24312.jpg (1.804 MB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This illustration shows NASA's Perseverance rover casting off its spacecraft's cruise stage, minutes before entering the Martian atmosphere. Hundreds of critical events in the rover's Entry, Descent, and Landing sequence must execute perfectly and exactly on time for the rover to touch down on Mars safely on Feb. 18, 2021.

The cruise stage contains fuel tanks, solar panels, and other hardware needed during the trip to Mars. About 10 minutes before atmospheric entry, it separates from the aeroshell, which encloses the rover and descent stage. The aeroshell makes the trip to the surface on its own.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover for NASA.

For more information about the mission, go to: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020.

Image Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:

2020-12-16