NASA/JPL’s Ingenuity Helicopter drone took some amazing photos showing the backshell of Perserverance’s landing hardware, still attached to the parachute which was used for landing on Mars. This was detached just before the Skycrane ignited its rocket engines for the soft touchdown, and it would have continued to fall under the parachute to an uncontrolled landing on Mars. But even with most of the mass gone, the parachute wasn’t enough to give it a soft landing and it’s a great example of why we need rocket engines to soft land on Mars.
Background music is ‘Looping ascent’ by Joel Cummins
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