Evolving Science Strategies for Mars Exploration

The first samples from the Moon were collected by two astronauts. The first samples collected for eventual return to Earth from Mars will take three robots aboard the Perseverance rover working as ...

This sunset on Mars was captured by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover using its Mastcam-Z camera system on Nov. 9, 2021, the 257th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

This guided tour of Mars' Jezero Crater from NASA’s Perseverance rover provides a glimpse of the Martian landscape  from the rover's highest vantage point yet in the “Séítah” region.

Shown here is a representation of the 21 sample tubes (containing rock, regolith, atmosphere, and witness materials) that have been sealed to date by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. The samples Per...

This is an illustration of the aluminum plate with the United States flag that is mounted on the Mars Perseverance rover. This plate is located at the base of Perseverance’s remote sensing mast.

What secrets could we unravel by studying Mars samples in state-of-the-art labs on Earth? Scientists around the globe are eager to find out.

Ingenuity’s lower cyclic control on Flight One. Similar cyclic controls applied on the upper rotor.

Technicians in the clean room are carefully lowering the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument into the belly of the Perseverance rover.

This image shows the cored-rock sample remaining in the sample tube after the drill bit was extracted from Perseverance’s bit carousel on Jan. 7, 2022.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z camera to capture this enhanced color image of “Hogwallow Flats” on June 6, 2022, the 461st Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

Engineers lower MOXIE into the belly of NASA's Perseverance rover.

The actor Brad Pitt (right) shows off his "boarding pass" for Mars with Jennifer Trosper (left), the Mars 2020 project systems engineer, at JPL on Sept. 6, 2019. You can send your name to Mars aboa...

The single-engine Centaur upper stage for the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket for NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is being transported to the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Comp...

See NASA’s next Mars rover quite literally coming together inside a clean room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

This annotated image of Mars’ Jezero Crater depicts the location of NASA’s Perseverance rover (yellow dot) and the field of view of its Remote Microscopic Imager (RMI) camera when it took a series ...

Optimism, a full-scale replica of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, tests a model of Perseverance’s regolith bit in a pile of simulated regolith – broken rock and dust – at JPL.

The white circle near the center of this image of Mars represents the location where NASA’s Perseverance rover is expected to land on Feb. 18, 2021.

A member of NASA's Mars 2020 project checks connections between the spacecraft's back shell and cruise stage at NASA's Jet propulsion Laboratory on March 26, 2019. 

Two holes are left in the Martian surface after NASA’s Perseverance rover used a specialized drill bit to collect the mission’s first samples of regolith – broken rock and dust – on Dec. 2 and 6.

This illustration depicts artwork that is etched on two anodized aluminum plates that form a pair.

For the first time, a spacecraft on another planet has recorded the sounds of a separate spacecraft. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its SuperCam microphone to listen to the Ingenuity helicopte...

Technicians install a Mastcam-Z high-definition camera in the remote sensing mast that will later go on NASA's Mars 2020 rover.

This image of an area the Mars Perseverance rover team calls “Faillefeu” was captured by NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 13th flight at Mars on Sept. 4, 2021.

This image of the backshell and supersonic parachute of NASA’s Perseverance rover was captured by the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 26th flight on Mars on April 19, 2022. 

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its abrasion tool to grind down the rock surface at this target, nicknamed “Bellegarde,” on Sept. 29, 2021, the 188th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.