Mission Timeline

In this image, the second stage of the Black Brant IX sounding rocket separates from the ASPIRE payload. The third and final flight test of the ASPIRE payload was launched from NASA's Wallops Fligh...

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.

To prepare the Perseverance rover for its date with Mars, NASA’s Mars 2020 mission team conducted a wide array of tests to help ensure a successful entry, descent and landing at the Red Planet.

​After nearly 300 million miles (470 million km), NASA’s Perseverance rover completes its journey to Mars on Feb. 18, 2021.

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover has been hard at work using the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) instrument  to help determin...

The solar panel of NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter's solar panel as seen by Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover. 

The left view is a sample view of a pile of rocks taken in the "Mars Yard" testing area at JPL. The right picture illustrates one way the camera data can be used to reveal the contours of a target ...

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured a historic group selfie with the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on April 6, 2021. 

NASA’s Perseverance took a selfie looking down at one of 10 tubes the rover deposited at the sample depot it created in an area within Jezero Crater nicknamed “Three Forks.” This image was taken by...

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

NASA's upcoming Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission will collect the first samples from another planet (the red one) for return to Earth by subsequent missions.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover onboard is seen on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41, Tuesday, July 28, 2020, at Cape Canaveral Air Force St...

The Mars 2020 rover undergoes processing inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 14, 2020.

From launch to the journey to Mars to atmospheric entry to surviving on the Martian surface, NASA’s Perseverance rover will have to endure a lot of extreme environments on its way to the Red Planet.

The image on the left is an enhanced-color image taken by the Mastcam-Z imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover of a rocky outcrop in the "Séítah" geologic unit of Jezero Crater.

Buckle up for a Mars tour with rover driver Vandi Verma, and learn how NASA’s rovers have evolved to better explore this alien world.

A technician works on the descent stage for NASA’s Mars 2020 mission inside JPL’s Spacecraft Assembly Facility. Mars 2020 is slated to carry NASA’s next Mars rover to the Red Planet in July of 2020.

This image of Ingenuity was taken on May 23, 2021 – the day after its sixth flight – by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard the Perseverance Mars rover.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this image of “Bettys Rock” using one of the rover navigation cameras on June 20, 2022, the 474th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter can be seen here taking off, hovering and then landing on the Martian surface on April 19, 2021. The Mastcam-Z imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover shot video of...

This Sept. 1 image from NASA's Perseverance rover shows a sample tube with its cored-rock contents inside. 

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

The drill bits used by NASA’s Perseverance rover are seen before being installed prior to launch. From left, the regolith bit, six bits used for drilling rock cores, and two abrasion bits used to r...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover looks out at an expanse of boulders on the landscape in front of a location nicknamed “Santa Cruz” on Feb. 16, 2022, the 353rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission in ...

Perseverance snapped this view of a hill called “Santa Cruz” on April 29, 2021. About 20 inches (50 centimeters) across on average, the boulders in the foreground are among the type of rocks the ro...