NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover prepares for Mars landing this Thursday

To mark the upcoming landing of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, New York City's iconic Empire State Building will light its tower red on Tuesday, February 16, starting at sunset until 2 a.m. the following morning. Further, Los Angeles International Airport gateway pylons and other sites in the United States will glow red to celebrate the historic landing.

NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is all set to touch down on the surface of Mars on Thursday, February 18, after a journey of nearly seven months.

The rover will land at the Red Planet's Jezero Crater to search for signs of ancient microbial life and collect samples for future missions. The touchdown is scheduled for approximately 3:55 PM EST this Thursday.

Excited for @NASAPersevere to land on Mars?! Keep that energy up & join our global @NASASocial where you can: 🌠 Connect with space enthusiasts🤩 Go behind-the-scenes of @NASAJPL👨‍🔬 Ask ?s to expertsThe #CountdownToMars is 3 days away. Sign up now: https://t.co/kMZJmFEHGU pic.twitter.com/Mx6RpNZPxC

— NASA (@NASA) February 15, 2021

During landing, the Perseverance rover will plunge through the thin Martian atmosphere at about 20,000 kph. A parachute and powered descent will slow the rover down to about 3 kph to land softly on six wheels at Jezero Crater.

As of February 14, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover had travelled over 464 million kilometres of its 470.8 million-kilometre journey to the Red Planet.

If there's one thing we know, it's that landing on Mars is never easy.But as NASA's fifth Mars rover, Perseverance has an extraordinary engineering pedigree and mission team. We are excited to invite the entire world to share this exciting event with us

NASA Associate Administrator for Communications Marc Etkind

Live coverage for the landing event will begin on Feb 18 at 2:15 PM ET on the NASA TV and the agency's official website. You can also watch the landing on the NASA App as well as on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch, Daily Motion, and THETA.TV.

To mark the upcoming landing of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, New York City's iconic Empire State Building will light its tower red on Tuesday, February 16, starting at sunset until 2 a.m. the following morning. Further, Los Angeles International Airport gateway pylons and other sites in the United States will glow red to celebrate the historic landing.