NASA Perseverance Rover Reaches Mars to Hunt for Ancient Life
NASA's Perseverance rover successfully lands inside Mars' Jezero Crater after a 300-million-mile journey. The robotic explorer now searches for signs of past microbial life and collects samples for future return to Earth.
NASA's Perseverance rover successfully lands inside Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, completing a nearly 300-million-mile journey from Earth. The ambitious Mars 2020 mission launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on July 30, 2020, riding an Atlas V rocket into space before traversing the solar system to reach the Red Planet.
The rover touches down shortly before 4 p.m. EST in a 28-mile-wide crater located about 19 degrees north of the Martian equator. A spectacular sky crane descent system lowers the heavy robotic explorer onto the surface, marking the beginning of its primary mission to study the area's geology and hunt for subsurface water ice.
Over the next two years, Perseverance searches for signs of past microbial life and explores possible ancient habitable environments. The rover also collects rock and soil samples that a future mission campaign returns to Earth, while the accompanying Ingenuity Mars Helicopter prepares for its own historic flight tests.