Mars rover mission Perseverance lands on Mars tomorrow and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to broadcast its arrival in Spanish. The US agency has aired space exploration in the language before — most recently coverage of the December 14th total solar eclipse. This, however, is NASA’s first Spanish language broadcast of a planetary landing.
Entitled “Juntos perseveramos” (“together we persevere”), the program will start streaming at 2:30 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) on NASA’s website as well as over the agency’s Spanish language social media accounts: Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. According to a news release from Spanish Communications Lead María José Viñas and Senior Communications Team Lead Grey Hautaluoma, “[Juntos perseveramos] will give viewers an overview of the mission to Mars and highlight the role Hispanic NASA professionals have had in it.” The interviews themselves are pre-recorded. Perseverance engineer Diana Trujillo will host.
“Juntos perseveramos” will also feature a children’s segment produced in collaboration with Sésamo. Previously known as “Plaza Sésamo,” it’s the Spanish language version of American television program “Sesame Street.”
In the past, NASA has produced children’s educational programming in Spanish in collaboration with Univision Puerto Rico. In 2003, the two organizations made “Noticiencias NASA™” — a series of one minute videos and web based shows for kids in third through fifth grades.
“Juntos perseveramos” will stream before the Perseverance rover’s anticipated landing on Mars. The mission itself is expected to reach the red planet at approximately 3:55 pm EST. Launched July 30, 2020, Perseverance “will search for signs of ancient microbial life, carefully collect selected rock and sediment — broken rock and dust — samples for future return to Earth, characterize Mars’ geology and climate and pave the way for human exploration beyond the Moon. It is NASA’s fifth Mars rover and, if successful, will be NASA’s ninth Mars landing,” write Viñas and Hautaluoma.
