Mission Timeline

Seeking signs of past life on Mars would be a multi-step process, according to the Science Definition Team for NASA's Mars 2020 mission.

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.

This is the top-down view into a sample tube is the type of image CacheCam provides to the Mars 2020 team.

Members of the NASA Mars Helicopter team inspect the flight model (the actual vehicle going to the Red Planet), inside the Space Simulator.

Michael Tuite and Rachel Kronyak of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory served as part of the desert field team, sending images and data for review by scientists who will work with NASA's Perseverance...

Color has been added to highlight minerals in this image of Jezero Crater on Mars, the landing site for NASA's Mars 2020 mission. The green color represents minerals called carbonates, which are es...

Members of NASA’s Mars Helicopter team prepare the flight model (vehicle going to Mars) for a test in the Space Simulator.

The Mars 2020 rover undergoes processing inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 13, 2020.

Technicians working Mars 2020’s System’s Test 1 approach their workstation in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

NASA's Mars 2020 spacecraft undergoes examination prior to an acoustic test in the Environmental Test Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

This shows one prototype for hardware to cache samples of cores drilled from Martian rocks for possible future return to Earth.

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.

​​Members of NASA's Mars 2020 project take a moment after attaching the remote sensing mast to the Mars 2020 rover.

​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. 

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

The first stage of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V that will carry NASA's Perseverance rover into space is offloaded from an Antonov cargo plane at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Two members of the field team set up cameras as part of the simulated rover operation. The images they provided were intended to stand in for what a rover's instruments might send back from Mars. 

In this August 5, 2019 image, the bit carousel - the heart of sampling and caching subsystem of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission -  is attached to the front end of the rover.

The High Bay 1 clean room within the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at JPL is seen in this image taken on Nov. 12, 2019. The Mars 2020 rover is visible just above center. 

This animated GIF shows a test of the mortar system that will be used on Feb. 18, 2021, to deploy the parachute for NASA's Perseverance rover. The test took place in November 2019 at a facility in ...

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 deliv...

This is an artist concept of the Atlas V541 launch vehicle that will carry NASA's Curiosity rover on its way to Mars.

Observations at large scales, such as panoramas of Martian landscapes, help researchers identify smaller-scale features of special interest for examination in more detail.

The helicopter was tested on a stand while the cruise stage was tested on the rotation fixture.

NASA's Mars 2020 rover will store rock and soil samples in sealed tubes on the planet's surface for future missions to retrieve, as seen in this illustration.