NASA set to launch next-generation Mars rover Perseverance – Gulf Today

NASA set to launch next-generation Mars rover Perseverance – Gulf Today

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The car-sized six-wheeled robotic rover, which will launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance, also is scheduled to deploy a mini helicopter on Mars and test out equipment for future human missions to the fourth planet from the sun.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine speaks during a press conference in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US. Reuters

The weather forecast from the Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron put chances of an undisturbed liftoff at 80 percent, reporting a slim chance that thick clouds would form over the launchpad and delay the launch.

"This is the ninth time we've landed on Mars, so we do have experience with it," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

Perseverance is due to land at the base of an 820-foot-deep (250 meters) crater called Jezero, a former lake from 3.5 billion years ago that scientists suspect could bear evidence of potential past microbial life on Mars. Scientists have long debated whether Mars - once a much more hospitable place than it is today “” ever harbored life.

One of the most complex maneuvers in Perseverance's journey will be