Enlarge / Perseverance has landed about two kilometers from a delta system, shown in the upper left of this image.

In their first press conference following Perseverance's successful landing on Mars, NASA and JPL scientists revealed some information on where the rover landed and what to expect for the next several days and weeks as it begins its mission in earnest.

Pics or it didn’t happen

One of the first orders of business is getting some of the images, audio, and video taken during the landing back to Earth. For now, doing so requires using a low gain antenna to transmit data to some of the hardware in orbit around Mars. Jennifer Trosper, the Deputy Project Manager for the rover said that the Mars Odyssey orbiter should have a brief pass overhead within the next few hours, followed by the Mars Trace Gas orbiter, which will have a longer overflight and grab larger amounts of data. Matt Wallace, another Deputy Project Manager, said that should be enough to allow NASA to release video of the landing on Monday.

Long term, however, communications will rely on a high-gain antenna that will allow direct communications with Earth. That will require pointing it, which means understanding the rover's current orientation on Mars' surface, which the team has inferred from the shadows cast in the first images sent down. Incidentally, those were taken with transparent lens caps on the Perseverance's navigation cameras, so we can expect better images once those are removed.

Enlarge

NASA's Perseverance rover has successfully landed on the surface of Mars, transmitting telemetry information and the first images of its landing site. A low-resolution driving camera image shows a field of dust-covered rocks, with the unmistakable shadow of the rover hardware. The images were so fresh that the dust kicked up by the landing was still settling in the early images.

The landing came at the end of a cruise through interplanetary space and a dive through the Martian atmosphere, as the rover and its rocket-supported crane shed parachutes, a heat shield, and a lot of speed. It culminated in the skycrane gently lowering the rover to the surface before rocketing off to land at a safe distance.

NASA refers to the landing protocol as "seven minutes of terror," due to its complicated, multi-stage nature , all of which is run under automated guidance. Adding to the tension, all of the outcomes will have already happened over 10 minutes ago by the time any indications of their success reaches Earth.