NASA to Launch Mars Rover in 2020

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.

Lighter colors represent higher elevation in this image of Jezero Crater on Mars, the landing site for NASA's Mars 2020 mission. The oval indicates the landing ellipse, where the rover will be touc...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is visible in the upper left corner of this image the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took during its third flight, on April 25, 2021. The helicopter was flying at...

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...

NASA’s Perseverance rover wiggles one of its wheels in this set of images obtained by the rover’s left Navigation Camera on March 4, 2021.

A crane lifts the rocket-powered descent stage away from NASA's Mars 2020 rover after technicians tested the pyrotechnic charges that separate the two spacecraft.

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

Taken Feb. 22, 2021, this image from the Mastcam-Z instrument on NASA’s Perseverance rover shows a target for analysis by the rover’s SuperCam instrument.

An illustration of NASA’s Perseverance rover landing on Mars. Hundreds of critical events must execute perfectly and exactly on time for the rover to land safely on Feb. 18, 2021.

This image of the backshell and supersonic parachute of NASA’s Perseverance rover was captured by the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 26th flight on Mars on April 19, 2022. 

The twin Mastcam-Z cameras, shown with a pocket knife for scale, are assembled and ready for testing in this photo taken at Malin Space Science Systems, in San Diego, California.

The imagery for this animated gif was taken on March 5, 2021, by a Navigation Camera on NASA’s Perseverance rover during its first drive on Mars.

This image of the nameplate secured to the arm of NASA's Mars Perseverance rover was taken at a payload servicing facility at Kennedy Space Center soon after being attached on March 4, 2020. The la...

Twenty students – along with their parents, teachers, and classmates – met virtually with Mars rover team members at JPL, where they received personalized messages beamed from NASA’s Perseverance r...

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.

NASA’s Perseverance rover was able to use its new Terrain-Relative Navigation technology to avoid hazards and find a safe place to land in Jezero Crater on Mars. 

​​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.

Download an ATLAS rocket launch coloring sheet. 

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover's descent stage was recently stacked atop the rover at Kennedy Space Center, and the two were placed in their back shell. The Ingenuity helicopter can be seen attache...

A tray holding 39 sample tubes – each protected in a gold-colored sheath – is installed in NASA's Perseverance rover in this picture taken at the agency's Kennedy Space Center on May 21, 2020.

In February 2021, NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover and NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter (shown in an artist's concept) will be the agency's two newest explorers on Mars. Both were named by stude...

Collecting samples from Mars and bringing them back to Earth will be a historic undertaking that starts with the launch of NASA's Perseverance rover, part of the Mars 2020 mission.

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 illustration shows a concept for a proposed NASA Mars lander-and-rocket combination that would play a key role in returning to Earth samples of Mars material collected by the Perseverance rove...

The nose cone containing the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover sits atop a motorized payload transporter at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on July 7, 2020.