Cradle Of Aviation Holding Viewing Party For Mars Rover Launch

GARDEN CITY, NY — The Cradle of Aviation Museum will be holding both live and socially-distanced viewing parties to watch the launch of NASA's newest Mars rover on Thursday morning.

NASA plans to launch its Perseverance Rover at 7:50 a.m. on July 30. The Cradle of Aviation will begin sharing live coverage and countdown commentary at 7 a.m. The museum will also be sharing mission updates, STEM activities and opportunities for the community to extend the launch experience.

“Perseverance has a lot of ground-breaking objectives and instrumentation for its mission including new radar, creating oxygen from carbon dioxide, searching for microbial life and returning Martian samples to Earth," said Jennifer Baxmeyer, the executive director of the Cradle of Aviation. "But one of the key objectives that we are very excited about is the 'helicopter' named Ingenuity tucked into its belly that will make the very first powered flight on another planet!”

NASA’s Perseverance rover is designed to better understand the geology of Mars and seek ancient signs of life. The mission will collect and store a set of rock and soil samples that could be returned to Earth in the future. It will also test new technology to benefit future robotic and human exploration of Mars. Following a seven-month journey, the rover is scheduled to land at Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. The rover, which weighs just under 2,300 pounds, will also carry the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, a technology demonstration that marks the first attempt at powered, controlled flight on another planet. The mission will last at least one Martian year (about 687 Earth days).

In order to watch the launch, the museum will be adding two large video screens in the space gallery. The first will stream live coverage of the launch from NASA TV and replay throughout the day. The second screen will show footage of Mars as well as past interviews with NASA Mechanical Engineer Kobie Boykins, who works on Mars exploration rovers and spoke to students at the museum on the importance of scientific exploration. The museum will be open at 7:30 a.m. for this event.

For those who don't want to go out, the museum’s social media channels will be sharing live coverage and updates throughout the day on progress of the launch. You can watch online at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. A Facebook Watch Party will begin at 7 a.m. on Thursday.