Watch how the @NASAPersevere rover will execute its "seven minutes of terror" landing on Mars on Thursday, February 18 (via @NASAJPL)

It's called that because while the EDL (Entry, Descent, and Landing) process takes about 7 minutes to complete, with a signal from Mars taking ~11.4 minutes (on the date of landing) to reach Earth we won't know if everything went OK until a few minutes after it's done!

We'll actually know how everything's going a couple of minutes sooner than we did during @MarsCuriosity's landing on August 5, 2012 but it still will be subject to a delay that's longer than the EDL process itself.

Everything @NASAPersevere will be doing on the 18th will be completely automated, either pre-scripted via prior uploaded commands or based on its own analysis of the environment around it.

Perseverance's time of landing on Feb. 18 will be 3:55 p.m. EDT / 12:55 p.m. PDT / 20:55 UTC. Coverage of the event will begin on NASA TV channels at 2:15 p.m. EDT / 19:15 UTC. (Other programming related to @NASAPersevere will be airing in the days and hours prior as well.)

You can find NASA TV scheduling and streaming on the agency's site at https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/#public and by searching on YouTube or by downloading the app for iOS https://apps.apple.com/app/nasa-app/id334325516 or Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.nasa&hl=en

Perseverance's landing will be extra interesting in that it will have not only cameras watching above and below but also **microphones recording the sounds of it all!** Once on Mars, @NASAPersevere will be capturing sound as well as images. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/sounds/

Fact: the @NASAPersevere rover weighed about 2,260 pounds (1,025 kg) on Earth but will only be about 866 pounds (393 kg) on Mars.

Also I had a chance to talk about Mars, @NASAPersevere and Ingenuity today with @NBC10_Lindsay. Hoping to drum up some local excitement for the landing in 2 weeks!