Members of Nasa’s Perseverance Mars rover team watch in mission control as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars. Credit: Nasa/Bill Ingalls.

Nasa has announced that its Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars after surviving its risky descent.

The rover travelled 293 million miles during a 203-day journey before entering the Martian atmosphere at 12,000mph.

Its touchdown was confirmed in mission control at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California.

Perseverance sent its first black-and-white images from the Martian surface a few moments after landing.

Launched on 30 July 2020 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the Perseverance rover mission will undergo testing for several weeks before starting its two-year science investigation of Mars’ Jezero Crater.

The 2,263lb robotic geologist and astrobiologist is claimed to be the most advanced astrobiology lab ever sent to another world and it marks the first step in the effort to collect Mars samples and return them to Earth.

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Nasa Administrator Steve Jurczyk said: “This landing is one of those pivotal moments for Nasa, the United States, and space exploration globally – when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks.

“The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission embodies our nation’s spirit of persevering even in the most challenging of situations, inspiring, and advancing science and exploration. The mission itself personifies the human ideal of persevering toward the future and will help us prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.”

The six-wheeled vehicle will investigate the rock and sediment of Jezero’s Crater, which is around 28 miles-wide locating on the western edge of Isidis Planitia.

Last week, the UAE became the first Arab country to reach Mars with the arrival of the Hope probe into the planet’s orbit.