NASA’s Mars Exploration Program includes the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter drone. Launched on 30 July 2020, it’s scheduled to touch down on Mars’ Jezero crater on 18 February 2021.

The rover is expected to land on Mars on Thursday and, according to NASA, during landing it will plunge through the planet’s thin atmosphere, protected by a heat shield, at a speed of about 20,000 kph, before a parachute and powered descent slow the rover down to about 3.2 kph. After that, a large sky crane will help the rover to perform a soft landing on six wheels on the 45 km-wide Jezero Crater.