Mission Timeline

Seasons change even on Mars and NASA's fleet of explorers are helping scientists learn more about the effects on the Red Planet.

On May 18, 2022, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used an artificial intelligence software called Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) to select and target the rock seen in ...

This annotated image depicts the multiple flights – and two different routes – NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter could take on its trip to Jezero Crater’s delta.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took this color image from an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters) during its fifth flight on May 7, 2021.

This image, taken in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility's High Bay 1 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on July 23, 2019, shows a close-up of the head of Mars 2020's remote sen...

This enhanced-color image from the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover shows sample tube inside the coring bit after the Aug. 6 coring activity was completed. 

​​The shipping container carrying NASA's Mars 2020 rover is readied for loading aboard an Air Force C-17 transport plane at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California, on Feb. 11, 2020.

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

Perseverance's Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) uses radar waves to probe the ground

Students Alex Mather, at left, and Vaneeza Rupani, stand near the countdown clock at the News Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 28, 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 Ingenuity Mars Helicopter remains on the belly of the Perseverance rover on March 26, 2021, the 36th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. 

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory driving the agency’s Perseverance rover use visualization software to plan how the rover moves around on Mars. This clip from their visualization shows...

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

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

This diagram illustrates the current iteration of the lens packaging for the Perseverance rover's Mastcam-Z instrument. 

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.

A seven-person field team served as a simulated rover, carrying cameras and science instruments to the Nevada desert. Meanwhile, mission scientists at institutions like  NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labor...

Members of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter team in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory react to data showing that the helicopter completed its first flight on April...

This first image of NASA’s Perseverance Rover on the surface of Mars from the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows many parts of the Mars 2020 mission landing system that g...

This image shows the area on Mars from which NASA’s Perseverance rover will collect its first rock sample.

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...

Power for Mars 2020 The electricity needed to operate NASA's Mars 2020 rover (pictured here) is provided by a power system called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, or MMRTG. N...

Landing a spacecraft on Mars is one of the trickiest things we do. This 60-second video explains how it's done, and the three landing systems we use at the Red Planet.

This annotated image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows the journey NASA’s Perseverance rover has taken and will take in the future as it heads toward Jezero Crater’s delta on Mars...