DAYS 1 TO 10
Over the next few days, Perseverance will go through a number of important tasks to ensure it is up and running smoothly. It will confirm its exact location on Mars, while the team will “try to establish the vehicle’s base functions—power, thermal, and communications,” says Trosper. “Because if any of those base functions aren’t working, then the vehicle can be in harm very quickly.” It will also use the sun’s overhead position to figure out where exactly Earth is in the sky for direct communications, and then run through checks of its instruments and systems—while continuing to beam back images of its surroundings, too.
“It’ll take us about four or five days to get all that done,” Trosper says. The next five days, meanwhile, will be spent transitioning from the software the rover used to land to the software it needs to operate on the surface. The rover will then test out its robotic arm, which will be used to collect and store samples on the surface, and will also take its very first ‘steps,’ performing a short drive on its six rugged wheels. While all this is going on, however, another team will be poring through images of the landing site, getting ready for a major test—the first flight on Mars.
The First 100 Days on Mars: How NASA's Perseverance Rover Will Begin Its Mission - Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-first-100-days-on-mars-how-nasas-perseverance-rover-will-begin-its-mission/