Mission Timeline

This reel depicts key events during entry, descent, and landing that will occur when NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars February 18, 2021.

The HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this image of the Perseverance rover on Feb. 24, 2021.

The Mars 2020 spacecraft’s heat shield falls away as the aeroshell descends to Mars on Feb. 18, 2021.

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...

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover carries two commercial-grade microphones, including this one on its chassis.

This GIF shows the order in which the 142 images that makeup the Mastcam-Z’s first 360-degree panorama were taken. Mastcam-Z is a pair of zoomable cameras on the mast, or “head,” of NASA’s Persever...

Chile's Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth -- and a ready analog for Mars' rugged, arid terrain.

This image shows where NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will take its test flights. Helicopter engineers added the locations for the rover landing site, the airfield, and the flight zone on an imag...

This image taken by the Mastcam-Z camera aboard NASA's Perseverance rover on Sept. 4, 2021, confirmed that the rover had retained a rock core in the sample tube held in the drill at the end of its ...

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 ...

Jennifer Trosper, Mars Perseverance project manager, leads rover team members at JPL in a round of applause for students who were honored through the “You’ve Got Perseverance” campaign for overcomi...

A 58-foot-tall Black Brant IX sounding rocket launches from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Oct. 4. This was the first test of the Mars 2020 mission's parachute-testing series, the Advanced Super...

The Mast Unit for Mars 2020's SuperCam, shown being tested here, will use a laser to vaporize and study rock material on the Red Planet's surface.

Top center: The plate on the aft crossbeam of NASA's Mars Perseverance rover — seen here on March 16, 2020, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center— carries 10,932,295 names submitted by people during NASA'...

This image shows the remains of an ancient delta in Mars' Jezero Crater, which NASA's Perseverance Mars rover will explore for signs of fossilized microbial life. The image was taken by the High Re...

Stitched together from multiple images, this mosaic of the Jezero Crater’s river delta was taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover on Apr. 17, 2021.

NASA’s Perseverance rover deposited the first of several sample tubes onto the Martian surface on Dec. 21, 2022, the 653rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This composite image of the tube, fil...

(Left) Apollo 12 astronaut Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. stands beside NASA's Surveyor 3 spacecraft; the lunar module Intrepid can be seen in the distance. (Right) Mars 2020 rover, seen here in an arti...

Interact with this 3D model of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover.

The Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) electronics box before being integrated into the Perseverance rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured this Martian dust devil moving east to west at a clip of about 12 mph (19 kph) along “Thorofare Ridge” on Aug. 30. The video, which was sped up 20 times, is compo...

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured this image of tracks made by the Perseverance rover during its ninth flight, on July 5. A portion of the helicopter’s landing gear can be seen at top left.

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.

In the fourth season of “On a Mission” we’ll be transported to the Red Planet with all five of NASA’s Mars rovers.

NASA’s Perseverance rover fires up its descent stage engines as it nears the Martian surface in this illustration.