Mars Sample Return Sticker

From the challenges of building NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter to its first Red Planet flight and well beyond, see some of the project’s milestones and highlights.

This infographic shows the various sources of carbon dioxide on Mars and their estimated contribution to Martian atmospheric pressure.

This image covers part of the floor of a large ancient impact crater, near the western rim.

A member of the media interviews mission team member Jessica Samuels inside JPL’s High Bay 1 clean room on Dec. 27, 2019, during Mars 2020 media day.

A dual rotor system for the next generation of Mars helicopters is tested in the 25-Foot Space Simulator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Sept.15. Longer and stronger than those used on the I...

This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows an impact crater that triggered a slope streak. When a meteoroid hit the surface and exploded to make the crater, it destabilized the slope ...

NASA's Opportunity rover appears as a blip in the center of this square. This image taken by HiRISE, a high-resolution camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the dust storm over P...

Members of the NASA Mars Helicopter team attach a thermal film to the exterior of the flight model of the Mars Helicopter. 

The InSight mission is heading to Mars, but many spacecraft have died trying to get there. The current record for Mars missions is 18 successes, and 25 failures. InSight hopes to improve the odds.

This image shows layered sedimentary rocks and ripples that fill and surround an impact crater in Meridiani Planum, an equatorial region where the rover Opportunity has been exploring the Martian s...

​As part of a Mars sample return mission, a rocket will carry a container of sample tubes with Martian rock and soil samples into orbit around Mars and release it for pick up by another spacecraft. 

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, right, and Erisa Hines of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, try out the Microsoft HoloLens mixed-reality headset during a preview of "Destin...

Anniversary artwork shows a NASA Viking 1 Lander or Viking 2 Lander on the surface of Mars. Landing in 1976, Viking Landers were the first to touch down on the Red Planet.

This image is a cropped version of the last 360-degree panorama taken by the Opportunity rover's Panoramic Camera (Pancam) from May 13 through June 10, 2018. The view is presented in false color to...

This illustration depicts the interior of a sample tube being carried aboard the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.

This animation depicts a flyover of a meteoroid impact crater on Mars that’s surrounded by boulder-size chunks of ice. The animation was created using data from the High-Resolution Imaging Science ...

NASA’s first rover on Mars was a cute little bundle of robotic joy. Many thought it was likely to fail. Instead, Sojourner revolutionized how we explore Mars, and marked the start of 25 years of Ma...

The shadow of NASA InSight's robotic arm moves over its heat probe, or "mole," on Nov. 3, 2019, the 333rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

The Mars 2020 spacecraft follows an entry, descent, landing process similar to that used in landing the Mars rover, Curiosity.

NASA’s Perseverance rover took these zoomed-in images of a layered outcrop (just below center of   image) nicknamed “Artuby” on June 17, 2021 (the 116th sol, or Martian Day, of its mission), from a...

Bob Balaram, Teddy Tzanetos and Havard Grip from the NASA Mars Helicopter project discuss the sequence of events for the day’s flight testing. 

Engineers and technicians working on NASA's Mars 2020 mission prepare spacecraft components for acoustic testing in the Environmental Test Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, ...

After arriving at Gediz Vallis channel, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this 360-degree panorama using one of its black-and-white navigation cameras on Feb. 3. The formation has scientists int...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z camera to view Phobos, one of Mars’ two moons, on Jan. 12, 2022, the 319th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

In time-lapse video bunny-suited engineers remove the inner layer of protective foil on NASA's Mars 2020 rover after it was moved to a different building at JPL for testing.