In 2011, the Planetary Science Decadal Survey, a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine containing an influential set of recommendations made by the planetary science community, stated that the top priority of NASA's planetary exploration program in the decade between 20 should be to begin a NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return campaign, a four-mission project to cache, retrieve, launch, and safely return samples of the Martian surface to Earth. By the summer of 2012, a program that had been launching a mission to Mars every two years suddenly found itself with no missions approved after 2013. Budget cuts forced NASA to pull out of a planned collaboration with the European Space Agency which included a rover mission. History įirst image acquired moments after Perseverance 's landing, from front left Hazard Avoidance Camera, February 18, 2021ĭespite the high-profile success of the Curiosity rover landing in August 2012, NASA's Mars Exploration Program was in a state of uncertainty in the early 2010s. The second campaign will include several months of travel towards the 'Three Forks' where Perseverance can access geologic locations at the base of the ancient delta of Neretva river, as well as ascend the delta by driving up a valley wall to the northwest. Butler landing site concludes the first science campaign. After that it will return to the Crater Floor Fractured Rough to collect the first core sample there.

In the first science campaign Perseverance performs an arching drive southward from its landing site to the Séítah unit to perform a 'toe dip' into the unit to collect remote-sensing measurements of geologic targets. Preparing for humans: test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.Caching samples: collect core rock and regolith ('soil') samples and store them within the rover and on the Martian surface (as a backup) for delivery to a future sample return rocket.Seeking biosignatures: seek signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in specific rock types known to preserve signs over time.Looking for habitability: identify past environments that were capable of supporting microbial life.The Perseverance rover has four main science objectives that support the Mars Exploration Program's science goals: Mission įurther information: Timeline of Mars 2020 Science objectives The rover's goals include identifying ancient Martian environments capable of supporting life, seeking out evidence of former microbial life existing in those environments, collecting rock and soil samples to store on the Martian surface, and testing oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere to prepare for future crewed missions. As of April 13, 2023, it has made 51 successful flights and continues to break its own records for speed, distance and altitude. The rover also carried the mini-helicopter Ingenuity to Mars, an experimental aircraft and technology testbed that made the first powered flight on another planet on April 19, 2021. It carries seven primary payload instruments, nineteen cameras, and two microphones. Perseverance has a similar design to its predecessor rover, Curiosity, although it was moderately upgraded. Following the rover's arrival, NASA named the landing site Octavia E. As of 3 June 2023, Perseverance has been active on Mars for 812 sols (835 Earth days, or 2 years, 3 months and 16 days) since its landing. Confirmation that the rover successfully landed on Mars was received on February 18, 2021, at 20:55 UTC. It was manufactured by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched on July 30, 2020, at 11:50 UTC. Perseverance, nicknamed Percy, is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the Jezero crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission.

Solar ash cache locations