Perseverance Rover Touches Down on Mars

The Perseverance rover just touched down on Mars, placing a one-ton SUV-sized robotic car on the Red Planet.

An artist concept of the Perseverance rover collecting samples from the Martian surface for future analysis in Earthbound laboratories. Image credit: NASA-JPL/Caltech

Following a 203-day mission, the Perseverance rover — the most-advanced rover ever sent to Mars, affectionately known as Percy — successfully touched down on the Red Planet on February 18th at 3:55 EST. This ambitious NASA mission — officially called Mars 2020 — is the third of three spacecraft to arrive at Mars in the last two weeks.

The SUV-sized rover will explore the Martian surface, looking for water, and possible signs of ancient microbial life which may have once made their home on Mars.

The spacecraft set down in Jezero Crater, site of an ancient Martian lake.

“Perseverance is NASA’s most ambitious Mars rover mission yet, focused scientifically on finding out whether there was ever any life on Mars in the past. To answer this question, the landing team will have its hands full getting us to Jezero Crater — the most challenging Martian terrain ever targeted for a landing,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, describes.

The Jezero Delta was Shining Like a National Guitar