Mission Timeline

The route NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has taken while driving through the lower part of Mount Sharp is shown as a pale line here. Different parts of the mountain are labeled by color; Curiosity is ...

Tour the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and see the Mars 2020 mission under construction. Project System Engineer Jennifer Trosper explains the hardware being buil...

An illustration of NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover deploying its supersonic parachute from its aeroshell as it slows down before landing.

This annotated image from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover shows how its SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Minerals) instrument investigates a rock...

This enhanced-color close-up of a rock target called “Cine” was captured by the SuperCam instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on September 17, 2021, the 206th Martian day, or sol, of ro...

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. 

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 ...

This set of images shows part of the deployment of the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) wind sensors on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, taken by the rover’s Navigation Cameras on Feb. 28...

Students took part in a NASA "You've Got Perseverance" event to honor them for overcoming academic challenges.

In this illustration, NASA’s Perseverance rover explores Mars’ Jezero Crater. The 28-mile-wide (45-kilometers-wide) crater is the location of an ancient lake.

Scientists think that these bands of rocks may have been formed by a very fast, deep river – the first of its kind evidence has been found for on Mars. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this ...

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter takes off and lands in this video captured on April 25, 2021, by Mastcam-Z, an imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. 

This illustration shows NASA’s Perseverance rover casting off its spacecraft’s cruise stage, minutes before entering the Martian atmosphere. 

This illustration shows NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover on the surface of the Red Planet. 

In this image, taken on June 13, 2019, engineers at JPL install the starboard legs and wheels — otherwise known as the mobility suspension — on the Mars 2020 rover.

This image shows the area on Mars from which NASA’s Perseverance rover will collect its first rock sample.

In this view from inside the Antonov 124 cargo aircraft, the United Launch Alliance booster for NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is offloaded at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida.

Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong works with an Apollo Lunar Sample Return Container during a lunar surface simulation training exercise in Building 9, Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas.

Meet two of the Martian samples that have been collected and are awaiting return to Earth as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign. As of late June 2023, NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover has collec...

The launch period window for NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance opens on July 20, 2020. The mission marks humanity's first step in returning samples from another planet and will seek past signs on Mars ...

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 ...

Technicians working on the Mars 2020 rover at JPL install the rover motor controller assembly, the electrical heart of the rover's mobility and motion systems.

The drill hole from Perseverance’s first sample-collection attempt can be seen, along with the shadow of the rover, in this image taken by one of the rover’s navigation cameras.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover onboard is seen on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 after being rolled out of the Vertical Integration Faci...

In this photo taken on Oct. 1, 2019, the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter (between left and center rover wheels) have just completed a multiweek evaluation under Mars-...