Watch: NASA rover bids for historic touchdown on Mars

Watch: NASA rover bids for historic touchdown on Mars

Seven months after its launch, NASA's rover is hoping to make landfall on Mars on Thursday.The more than €2 billion mission to the Red Planet launched in July 2020 and the rover should touch down in the Jezero Crater at 3:55 pm EST (21:55 CET).You can watch live in the video player, above. Controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, will then have to wait for a nail-biting 11 and a half minutes for a signal that would confirm a successful landing. This signal will be relayed to Earth by one of the European Space Agency's spacecraft.NASA hopes that its Perseverance rover — Percy for short — will uncover signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth. It will also study the planet's climate.The landing of the six-wheeled vehicle would mark the third visit to Mars in just over a week. Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China swung into orbit around the planet on successive days last week.All three missions lifted off in July to take advantage of the close alignment of Earth and Mars, traveling some 300 million miles in nearly seven