This is an incredible video just released by NASA of the Perseverance Rover’s touchdown on the Martian surface via Sky Crane (a crane that holds itself aloft via rockets while it lowers its payload to the ground). Some more details while I speculate where they actually filmed this in Arizona:
NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance mission captured thrilling footage of its rover landing in Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. The real footage in this video was captured by several cameras that are part of the rover’s entry, descent, and landing suite. The views include a camera looking down from the spacecraft’s descent stage (a kind of rocket-powered jet pack that helps fly the rover to its landing site), a camera on the rover looking up at the descent stage, a camera on the top of the aeroshell (a capsule protecting the rover) looking up at that parachute, and a camera on the bottom of the rover looking down at the Martian surface.
The audio embedded in the video comes from the mission control call-outs during entry, descent, and landing.
Man, the whole thing is just nuts. If you don’t think this is nuts, I’m afraid you don’t have a very firm grasp on nuts. “Like when somebody’s girlfriend is trying to get the truth out of them about the bachelor party.” Exactly *shivers* the opposite of that.