Mission Timeline

This image was taken by the Lander Vision System Camera (LCAM) of NASA’s Perseverance rover as the rover descended through the Martian atmosphere on Feb. 18, 2021. The camera served as part of the ...

​​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.

Beginning April 2021, the window opens for the first flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.  It will be history’s first attempt at powered, controlled flight on another planet.

This artist concept features NASA's Mars 2020 rover on the surface of Mars.

A picture from the navigation camera aboard Ingenuity captured the helicopter on takeoff during Flight Two, showing little sign of dust.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover began its long journey to Mars today by successfully launching from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a ULA Atlas V rocket. It now begins its seven-month journey to the ...

This is a high-resolution still image, part of a video taken by several cameras as NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars. A camera aboard the descent stage captured this shot.

This animation shows NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover collecting a rock sample from an outcrop the science team calls “Berea” using a coring bit on the end of its robotic arm. The images were taken b...

This computer simulation shows NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover taking its first selfie, on April 6, 2021. The point of view of the rover’s WATSON camera is included to show how each of the 62 images...

This recording was made by the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on Feb. 19, 2021, just about 18 hours after landing on the mission’s first sol or Martian day. The rover’s mast,...

This annotated image highlights potential routes that NASA’s Perseverance team is considering in September 2022 for the rover to drive from the front of an ancient river delta to the rim of Jezero ...

One of the Navcam imagers aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover captured the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on Feb. 26, 2023, the 719th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The helicopter is visible in ...

This image of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover – visible at the top, right of center – was taken at an altitude of about 16 feet (5 meters) by the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 54th flight on ...

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter is traveling to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover and must safely detach to begin the first attempt at powered flight on another planet. Tests done at...

The helicopter was tested on a stand while the cruise stage was tested on the rotation fixture. 

This image shows the cored-rock sample remaining in the sample tube after the drill bit was extracted from Perseverance’s bit carousel on Jan. 7, 2022.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover looks out at an expanse of boulders on the landscape in front of a location nicknamed “Santa Cruz” on Feb. 16, 2022, the 353rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission in ...

The left view is a sample view of a pile of rocks taken in the "Mars Yard" testing area at JPL. The right picture illustrates one way the camera data can be used to reveal the contours of a target ...

This photo shows two small drawings inscribed inside the front left wheel of the Mars Perseverance rover, pictured here before it was installed on the rover.

A close-up of the rock, nicknamed “Rochette,” that the Perseverance science team will examine in order to determine whether to take a rock core sample from it.

These eight places on Mars are potential landing sites under consideration as the destination for the Mars 2020 rover mission.

Vaneeza Rupani (inset), a junior at Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport, Alabama, came up with the name Ingenuity for NASA's Mars Helicopter (an artist's impression of which is seen here) an...

An Ingenuity team member inspects NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter in one of the space simulation chambers at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

On Aug. 27, 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover captured this image of the science-instrument-laden turret at the end of its robotic arm getting close to the rock nicknamed "Rochette."

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