Illustration showing the descent, entry and landing of the Perseverance rover. The stages (labelled) must be executed precisely and on schedule for the rover to land safely. The entry, descending and landing (EDL) on Mars will take approximately seven minutes. Firstly, the spacecraft loses its cruise stage before entering the Martian atmosphere. The aeroshell, containing the rover and descent stage, remains. The heat shield protects the spacecraft as friction causes it to heat up to over 1,000 degrees Celsius as the rover slows down to speeds under 1,600 kilometres per hour and the parachute is deployed. New technology called Range Trigger opens the parachute at the right time. The heat shield separates and the rover is exposed to the Martian atmosphere. Terrain Navigation technology, being deployed for the first time in a Mars rover mission, uses a camera to compare the terrain to known maps to locate the safest place to land. The rover has a rocket powered descent stage with eight jet engines that separates from the rover. This initiates the sky crane manoeuvre, first used in the Curiosity mission, to deliver Perseverance to the surface after parachutes and thrusters slow and stabilise the descent stage.