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How did Perseverance Pick Its Landing Spot?

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We Asked a NASA Technologist.

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When NASA decides to send a rover to Mars,\h
a whole group of experts gets together to

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figure out where it needs to go for the best\h
science for that mission. Perseverance's mission

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was to find the signs of past life on Mars. So, all\h
the experts got together and picked Jezero crater.

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Jezero crater is an ancient lake bed and the\h
things that make it interesting for the scientists,

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the cliffs and the rocks and the craters — these\h
are the things that make it challenging to the

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engineers to land there. In order to land safely\h
at Jezero crater, Perseverance needed a brand

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new technology called Terrain Relative\h
Navigation. Terrain Relative Navigation

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is basically like adding eyes to Perseverance.\h
For the first time, as she's descending on the

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parachute, Perseverance was able to look at\h
the ground and see it and figure out where

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she was and then decide where to go based on\h
the hazards that she could see on the ground.

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This allowed Perseverance to thread the needles\h
between all the different hazards of Jezero crater

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in order to land safely. So how did Perseverance\h
pick its landing spot? With a brand new pair of

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eyes that allowed it to land in the most\h
challenging terrain ever attempted on Mars.