NASA to Launch Mars Rover in 2020

During their only opportunity to see NASA's next Mars rover from inside JPL's clean room prior to its shipment to Cape Canaveral, members of the media interview the builders of the Mars 2020 mission.

This composite image, made from four taken by the SuperCam instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover on Aug. 8, 2021, shows the hole in a Martian rock where the rover attempted to collect its fir...

Mars 2020 engineers and technicians installed the high-gain antenna on the rover's equipment deck in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility's High Bay 1 clean room at JPL.

At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover was prepared for encapsulation in the United Launch Alliance Atlas V payload fairing on June 18, 2020. 

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover carries two commercial-grade microphones, including this one on its chassis.

An engineer working on NASA's Mars 2020 mission uses a solar intensity probe to measure and compare the amount of artificial sunlight that reaches different portions of the rover.

Peer over the shoulders of our engineers as they build hardware for NASA's Mars 2020 mission. 

This annotated image depicts the ground track (indicated in white) of NASA’s Perseverance rover since it arrived on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021.

Members of JPL's assembly, test and launch operations team for NASA's Perseverance mission show appreciation for their newly named rover. The image was taken on March 4, 2020, at a payload processi...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z camera system to create this panorama of its first drill site. Scientists will be looking for a rock to drill somewhere in this location.

The 21st rock core captured by NASA's Perseverance has a composition that would make it good at trapping and preserving signs of microbial life, if any was once present. The sample – shown being ta...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie over a rock nicknamed “Rochette,” on September 10, 2021, the 198th Martian day, or sol of the mission. Two holes can be seen where the rover used its...

Visible both in the inset photograph on the upper left and near the center of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover in this illustration is the palm-size dome called the Laser Retroreflector Array (LaRA)....

This image of the “South Séítah” region of Jezero Crater was captured by NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 12th flight at Mars, on Aug. 16, 2021, and has proven useful to the Perseverance...

In this artist's concept, a two-stage United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle speeds the Mars 2020 spacecraft toward the Red Planet. This will be NASA's fifth Mars launch on an Atlas V, which...

This annotated image of Mars’ Jezero Crater depicts the ground track and waypoints of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s planned 11th flight, scheduled to take place no earlier than Aug. 4, 2021.

The location where NASA’s Perseverance rover will observe Ingenuity’s attempt at powered controlled flight at Mars is called “Van Zyl Overlook.”

An animated GIF depicts the Martian surface below the Perseverance rover, showing the results of the Jan. 15, 2022, percussive drill test to clear cored-rock fragments from one of the rover’s sampl...

Teddy Tzanetos, MiMi Aung and Bob Balaram of NASA’s Mars Helicopter project observe a flight test.

A United Launch Alliance worker is inside the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida on June 9, 2020.

This calibration target for Mars 2020's SHERLOC instrument includes five samples of spacesuit material, the first to ever be flown to the Red Planet. By studying how these samples degrade in the Ma...

This artist's rendition depicts NASA's Mars 2020 rover studying its surroundings. 

The electricity for NASA's Mars 2020 rover is provided by a power system called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, or MMRTG.

Meet a Martian sample that has been collected and is awaiting return to Earth as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign.

Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory participate in a training exercise in February 2020. They reviewed images and data sent by a field team in the Nevada desert, discussing where to send...