NASA to Launch Mars Rover in 2020

This artist's concept depicts astronauts and human habitats on Mars. NASA's Mars 2020 rover will carry a number of technologies that could make Mars safer and easier to explore for humans.

In just a couple of years, NASA’s newest rover will be flying to Mars. The Mars 2020 mission will use the next generation of science and landing technology to collect rock samples for possible retu...

​Flight tests of the Mars 2020 Lander Vision System, which will help guide NASA's next Mars mission to a safe touchdown on the Red Planet, are taking place in the California desert.

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

This illustration shows the moment after liftoff of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

This artist's concept is loosely based on the Curiosity rover in NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. Mission planners would potentially leverage aspects of this rover design for a Mars mission ...

This image of the rocket-powered descent stage sitting on to of NASA's Perseverance rover was taken in a clean room at Kennedy Space Center on April 29, 2020.

The nose cone containing NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is maneuvered into place atop its Atlas V rocket. The image was taken at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on July 7, 2020.

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

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.

This artist's concept shows a close-up of NASA's Mars 2020 rover studying an outcrop. 

As a professional dancer in New York City, NASA-JPL engineer Heather Bottom never forgot her passion for space. Now in Act II of her career, Heather is preparing to send NASA’s Perseverance Mars ro...

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission's disk-shaped cruise stage sits atop the back shell, which contains the powered descent stage and Perseverance rover. The brass-colored heat shield below is...

Mars 2020 Lift Activities in PHSF at Kennedy Space Center.

Faire atterrir une sonde sur Mars est l’une des choses les plus complexes à réaliser. Cette vidéo de 60 secondes explique comment cela est possible, et illustre les trois systèmes d'atterrissage ut...

A crane is attached to the second of four solid rocket boosters for the United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket to lift it into the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cap...

Made from fossilized microbes and sediment, these rounded rocks are stromatolites that were found in a dry lakebed during the field exercise. Scientists hope to find something similar in the dry la...

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Mars 2020 mission with the Perseverance rover lifts off from Space Launch Complex-41 at 7:50 a.m. EDT on July 30, 2020.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Mars 2020 mission with the Perseverance rover lifts off from Space Launch Complex-41 at 7:50 a.m. EDT on July 30, 2020.

This artist's sketch is loosely based on the Curiosity rover in NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. Mission planners would potentially leverage aspects of this rover design for a Mars mission d...

This is an artist's concept of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft during its cruise phase between launch and final approach to Mars.

Another view of NASA's Perseverance rover attached to a spin table during a test of its mass properties at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The image was taken on April 7, 2020.

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

The Mars 2020 mission is facing the most challenging landing yet on the Red Planet. It will touch down on Feb. 18, 2021, in Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) expanse full of steep c...

Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE) is an exploration technology investigation that will produce oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide.