NASA's astrobiology rover Perseverance makes historic Mars landing

Members of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team study data on monitors in mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, U.S. February 18, 2021. NASA/Bill Ingalls/Handout via REUTERS

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NASA's science rover Perseverance, the most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever sent to another world, streaked through the Martian atmosphere on Thursday and landed safely on the floor of a vast crater, its first stop on a search for traces of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet.

Mission managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles burst into applause and cheers as radio signals confirmed that the six-wheeled rover had survived its perilous descent and arrived within its target zone inside Jezero Crater, site of a long-vanished Martian lake bed.