Mission Timeline

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...

As part of its search for signs of ancient life on Mars, Perseverance is the first rover to bring a sample caching system to the Red Planet that will package promising samples for return to Earth b...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover carries two commercial-grade microphones, including this one on its mast. The mast microphone is part of the SuperCam instrument.

The engineering model (EM), an almost identical twin of MOXIE, is used for testing in the lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Can we fly on Mars? The laws of physics may say it's near impossible, but actually flying a heavier-than-air vehicle on the Red Planet is much harder than that. NASA’s Mars 2020 mission will del...

In this annotated image, Ingenuity’s flight path is depicted in yellow. Perseverance’s location is indicated in the upper left, with the blue line depicting its line of sight to the helicopter’s Fl...

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.

Standing in for a rover, a field team sets up equipment in a dry lakebed in the Nevada desert in February 2020. 

Two name plates mounted on the Mars Perseverance rover’s robotic arm are visible in this composite image, made from photos taken by the rover’s left Navcam on Sol 12 of its mission (March 2, 2021).

This is the first image NASA’s Perseverance rover sent back after touching down on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. The view, from one of Perseverance’s Hazard Cameras, is partially obscured by a dust cover.

This map shows the approximate flight path of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its ninth flight, on July 5.

Taken on March 5, 2021, this color-calibrated image from a Navigation Camera aboard NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover shows tracks from the rover’s first drive (darker marks in the foreground) an...

This artwork is printed on one of the 10 samples that make up a suite of calibration targets for the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHER...

Illustration of the Mars 2020 spacecraft, encapsulated in its protective aeroshell and en route to Mars.

In this photo taken on Oct. 1, 2019, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter (between left and center rover wheels) have just completed a multiweek evaluation under Mars-...

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter can be seen hovering during its third flight on April 25, 2021, as seen by the left Navigation Camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover.

This illustration depicts the mechanism and conceptual research targets for an instrument named Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals, or SHERLOC.

High Bay 1 looks much as it does today in this photo of NASA's Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers being tested on Feb. 10, 2003. 

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flew over this dune field in a region of Jezero Crater nicknamed “Séítah” during its ninth flight, on July 5, 2021. A portion of the helicopter’s landing gear can b...

In this image, taken July 19, 2019, in the clean room of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at JPL, the rover's 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) arm maneuvers its 88-pound (40-kilogram) sensor-laden turr...

NASA wants to celebrate students who’ve persevered. From overcoming unexpected challenges and hurdles in getting the Perseverance rover to Mars, and executing operations on the surface, the rover t...

In the Australian Outback, scientists from NASA’s upcoming Mars 2020 mission and their counterparts from the joint European-Russian ExoMars mission visited the oldest convincing evidence for life o...

This 3D view of an area the Mars Perseverance rover team calls “Faillefeu” was created from data collected by NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 13th flight at Mars on Sept. 4, 2021.

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

An engineer inspects the completed spacecraft that will carry NASA's next Mars rover to the Red Planet.