After a nail-biting seven-month journey totalling more than 300 million miles, NASA’s Perseverance rover’s landing on Mars will end with “seven minutes of terror” on Thursday.
The probe took off for the Red Planet in July last year.
Since then the US Space Agency and the UK scientists involved have undergone weeks of anxiety, troubleshooting, second-guessing and sleepless nights.
But at 8.55pm, in one of the most challenging technological feats human beings have ever attempted, Perseverance is due to arrive on the planet after reaching speeds of up to 12,000 miles per hour.
The touchdown will see the probe hit Mars before being slowed down to almost zero velocity in what amounts to a controlled collision.
The £1.95 billion mission, backed by the UK Government, is to explore and collect samples for a future return to Earth from the diverse ancient environments on Mars.
So how can you watch the historic event unfold here in the UK?
Unfortunately we won't be able to see any part of the landing happen in real-time, because of the time delay between Earth and Mars.
Instead, we can follow along with mission control as they receive a series of signals from Perseverance that hopefully confirm the successful execution of each phase of the landing.
The official NASA live stream is set to start at 7.15pm, and both the BBC and Sky news are offering coverage.
Fans can, however, look forward to an upgraded multimedia experience. This mission carries more than 20 cameras and a couple of microphones.
Two of the cameras are on the mini-helicopter that will try to fly in Mars’ atmosphere.
For day to day updates, Perseverance herself is on Twitter.
For a more detailed overview of the historic moment see our earlier coverage here.
