"Seven minutes of terror" for a historic moment.
The exercise has been repeated over and over again on Earth, but this time it is indeed on Mars that the Perseverance rover must land its four wheels.
If all goes well, it will be the fifth exploration vehicle to land on the Red Planet.
A crucial step for the American mission in March 2020 which took off on July 30, bringing on board the flagship of technical expertise from several countries, including France.
The stage of this Thursday evening, to say the least delicate, will mark the beginning of an exploration of several years.
What's going to happen ?
Scientists have warned that the landing will go through "7 minutes of terror" during which all the actors of the mission and all space lovers will hold their breath.
Perseverance, which weighs a little over a ton and is made up of many high-precision tools, must land by means of a parachute and hazards are never totally ruled out despite anticipation.
The rover will then act in complete autonomy, without any guidance from Earth: the scientists in charge of the mission will only be spectators of its arrival on Mars.
After landing, the time will come for a long exploration.
This must precisely take place on the crater of Jezero - 45 km in diameter - and its surroundings.
It is on this site that Perseverance must deploy its entire arsenal, including the Ingenuity helicopter drone, the first helicopter attached to a space mission.
Attached under Perseverance's belly, it should perform a flight despite very low atmospheric pressure which would, again, be a first in the history of astronomy.
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Cocorico, France is not left out in this state-of-the-art equipment!
The Hexagon supplied Perseverance with the high-power SuperCam camera, mounted on top of the Rover.
Developed by the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology (Irap), it is to study Martian rocks using a laser beam equipped by the Thalès group as well as a microphone - this is the first time that sound is studied on Mars.
SuperCam, which is the size of a shoebox and weighs around five kilos, will be the conductor of Perseverance and guide it through the samples to be taken.
The rover will then store these samples within it and within a few years will have to transmit them to another device whose mission will be to bring them back to Earth.
Why is tonight's landing so important?
Never has humanity been so close to answering the question of the existence of Martian life that is the source of many fantasies, and tonight's stage is a sine qua non for answering it.
Perseverance continues the work of Curiosity, its cousin, still exploring Mars where he arrived in 2012 to prove that the red planet was habitable.
Tomorrow I arrive at Jezero Crater, a dry lakebed on Mars.
I'll chart a path along its ancient shoreline, to see if it's like similar places on Earth.
I'm looking for rocks that tell a story of past microbial life.
https://t.co/5RCEWdNc9b #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/NsNJjXHPbu
- NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 17, 2021
In this line, Perseverance must, on the basis of the samples of Martian soil that it collects, establish whether or not life has indeed been present on this planet.
The discovery of traces of ancient organisms would be an unprecedented discovery, but before that, the simple return of Martian samples to Earth would already be an incredible first.
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Finally, the mission opens up the prospects for human life on Mars.
NASA will take advantage of this exploration to prepare a base for future astronauts, since the United States aims to send a man or a woman to Mars in 2034.
What about other countries in all of this?
In the summer of 2020, two other missions, those of the Chinese probe Tianwen-1 and the Emirati Hope, took off for Mars.
The Hope probe does not plan to land on the Red Planet, but to deliver data on the Martian atmosphere from the orbit of the Red Planet where it successfully inserted in mid-February.
Tianwen-1, on the other hand, went into orbit at around the same time and is due to land on Mars in May at the latest.
This traffic jam towards the red planet is explained by a technical constraint: last summer, an ideal window of fire was offered to the space agencies to send their devices: all the planets were literally aligned.
How to follow the mission?
The CNRS Dailymotion channel will broadcast the event simultaneously, as well as the Cnes YouTube and Twitch channels, the Arte YouTube channel, and that of the City of Science and Industry, in partnership with the Observatory of Paris-PSL, with the insights of scientists and astronauts.
The Cité de l'Espace de Toulouse will also offer to follow the event from its site.