The illustration posted on U.S. NASA website shows Perseverance rover landing safely on Mars, Feb. 18, 2021. (Photo credit: NASA)

NASA's Perseverance rover is the first rover to bring a sample caching system to Mars that will package promising samples for return to Earth by a future mission.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18  -- NASA's Perseverance rover touched down safely on Mars on Thursday, kicking off the agency's ninth mission on the Red Planet.

Cheers erupted in mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as controllers confirmed the rover, with the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter attached to its belly, completed its landing on Mars at around 3:55 p.m. EST.

The rover hit the top of the Martian atmosphere seven minutes before its touchdown, and executed the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) process, which was described by NASA as "seven minutes of terror."

The Perseverance rover, which is the biggest, heaviest, cleanest, and most sophisticated six-wheeled robotic geologist ever launched into space, will search Jezero Crater for signs of ancient life on Mars, and collect samples that will eventually be returned to Earth.

It is the first rover to bring a sample caching system to Mars that will package promising samples for return to Earth by a future mission.

"Perseverance is NASA's most ambitious Mars rover mission yet, focused scientifically on finding out whether there was ever any life on Mars in the past," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.