Perseverance finally spots its own parachute on the surface of Mars

[Still Waters]

More than 13 months after the Perseverance rover landed on Mars (on February 18, 2021), the rover’s cameras have finally spotted some of the parts of the Mars 2020 landing system that got the rover safely to the ground.  The parachute and backshell were imaged by Perseverance’s MastCam-Z, seen off in the distance, just south of the rover’s current location. The image was taken on Sol 404, or April 6, 2022 on Earth.

Normally the rover might have taken a brief side-trip early on in the mission to take images of the remains of the landing system. But Perseverance had to drive around some hazardous terrain to get to a large area of Jezero Crater that the science team wanted to study, called South Séítah. That was near the area where the parachute landed, and the rover finally got there. The parachute was jettisoned during the landing sequence so the Skycrane could lower the rover down to the surface on its wheels.  

.https://www.universetoday.com/155384/perseverance-finally-spots-its-own-parachute-on-the-surface-of-mars/

https://www.sciencealert.com/after-404-days-on-mars-perseverance-has-finally-spotted-its-parachute

[+and-then]

I'm STILL amazed that such a complicated landing system worked to perfection.  I was as impressed with that as I was the first rover making it to Mars.

[Jon the frog]

The drone don't have camera, or it's done for ? Would have been nice to use it to go see the landing system.

[pallidin]

5 hours ago, Jon the frog said:

The drone don't have camera, or it's done for ? Would have been nice to use it to go see the landing system.

Not sure, but I think the helicopters' continuing mission is highly specific to NASA objectives which may not include taking mundane aerial shots of the parachute.

But I don't know.

[Jon the frog]

12 hours ago, pallidin said:

Not sure, but I think the helicopters' continuing mission is highly specific to NASA objectives which may not include taking mundane aerial shots of the parachute.

But I don't know.

Would be an interesting experimental tesl but if NASA have still objectives to met with the drone, risking it to take these pictures would be a bad idea for sure.