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Perseverance (rover)
NASA Mars rover deployed in 2021

Perseverance is a car-sized Mars rover launched by NASA on July 30, 2020, to explore the Jezero crater on Mars. It landed successfully on February 18, 2021, at a site named Octavia E. Butler Landing, and has operated for over 1499 sols. The rover is similar to its predecessor, Curiosity, but upgraded, carrying advanced instruments and cameras. It also deployed the mini-helicopter Ingenuity, which performed the first powered flight on another planet before retiring after its 72nd flight. Perseverance’s mission includes searching for signs of past microbial life, collecting samples, and testing oxygen production to aid future crewed missions.

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Mission

Despite 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. Budget cuts forced NASA to pull out of a planned collaboration with the European Space Agency which included a rover mission.12 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 2013.13

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 2013 and 2022 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. The report stated that NASA should invest in a sample-caching rover as the first step in this effort, with the goal of keeping costs under US$2.5 billion.14

After the success of the Curiosity rover and in response to the recommendations of the decadal survey, NASA announced its intent to launch a new Mars rover mission by 2020 at the American Geophysical Union conference in December 2012.15

Though initially hesitant to commit to an ambitious sample-caching capability (and subsequent follow-on missions), a NASA-convened science definition team for the Mars 2020 project released a report in July 2013 that the mission should "select and store a compelling suite of samples in a returnable cache."16

Science objectives

The Perseverance rover has four main science objectives17 that support the Mars Exploration Program's science goals:18

  • Looking for habitability: identify past environments that were capable of supporting microbial life.
  • Seeking biosignatures: seek signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in specific rock types known to preserve signs over time.
  • Caching samples: collect core rock and regolith (unconsolidated and loose "soil") samples and store them within the rover and on the Martian surface (as a backup) for delivery to a future sample return rocket.19
  • Preparing for humans: test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.

In the first science campaign, dubbed "Crater Floor", Perseverance performed 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. After that it returned to the Crater Floor Fractured Rough to collect the first core sample there. Passing by the Octavia E. Butler landing site concluded the first science campaign.

The second campaign, "Fan Front", included several months of travel towards the "Three Forks" where Perseverance accessed geologic locations at the base of the ancient delta of Neretva river, as well as ascending the delta by driving up a valley wall to the northwest.20

The third and fourth campaigns were called "Upper Fan", and "Margin Unit", and the fifth campaign, "Northern Rim", in progress as of December 2024, is exploring "the northern part of the southwestern section of Jezero's rim" to study "rocks from deep down inside Mars that were thrown upward to form the crater rim" after the impact 3.9 billion years ago that formed Jezero Crater.21

Results

The scientific results, as of 2025, are as follows. According to NASA, the mission has made "discoveries about the volcanic history, habitability, and role of water in Jezero Crater."22 Specifically, they reported that instead of all the rocks in Jezero crater being sedimentary, being "transported into the crater by wind or water," "several types of igneous rock" were discovered, which "showed evidence of interaction with water."23 Additionally,

At a rock named "Wildcat Ridge" located within Jezero's well-preserved sedimentary fan deposit, Perseverance found evidence for an ancient lake environment. Not only were these sediments likely deposited in a standing body of water, but they also continued to interact with water long after they were formed. The environments recorded within the rocks at Wildcat Ridge would have been habitable for ancient microbial life, and this type of rock is ideal for preserving possible signs of ancient life.24

They also found that "sediments entering Jezero's lake were deposited in a delta" and "evidence for late-stage, high-energy flooding that carried large boulders into the crater."25 The MOXIE experiment produced 122 grams of oxygen from carbon dioxide.26 The microphone studies showed that the speed of sound is slower and the volumes of sounds transmitted through the atmosphere is lower, than on Earth.27 PIXL found that the Seitah formation and a rock at "Otis Peak" contained olivine, phosphates, sulfates, clays, carbonate minerals, silicate minerals, "augite pyroxene, feldspathic mesostasis, various Fe,Cr,Ti-spinels, and merrillite", perchlorate, feldspar, magnesite, siderite, oxides, as well as minerals with composition including magnesium, iron, chlorine, and sodium.2829 RIMFAX revealed findings "consistent with a subsurface dominated by solid rock and mafic material"30 and that "the crater floor experienced a period of erosion before the deposition of the overlying delta strata. The regularity and horizontality of the basal delta sediments observed in the radar cross sections indicate that they were deposited in a low-energy lake environment."31

Design

The Perseverance design evolved from its predecessor, the Curiosity rover. The two rovers share a similar body plan, landing system, cruise stage, and power system, but the design was improved in several ways for Perseverance. Engineers designed the rover wheels to be more robust than Curiosity's wheels, which had sustained some damage.32 Perseverance has thicker, more durable aluminum wheels, with reduced width and a greater diameter, 52.5 cm (20.7 in), than Curiosity's 50 cm (20 in) wheels.3334 The aluminum wheels are covered with cleats for traction and curved titanium spokes for springy support.35 The heat shield for the rover was made out of phenolic-impregnated carbon ablator (PICA), to allow it to withstand up to 2,400 °F (1,320 °C) of heat.36 Like Curiosity, the rover includes a robotic arm, although Perseverance's arm is longer and stronger, measuring 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in). The arm hosts an elaborate rock-coring and sampling mechanism to store geologic samples from the Martian surface in sterile caching tubes.37 There is also a secondary arm hidden below the rover that helps store the chalk-sized samples. This arm is known as the Sample Handling Assembly (SHA), and is responsible for moving the soil samples to various stations within the Adaptive Caching Assembly (ACA) on the underside of the rover. These stations include volume assessment (measuring the length of sample), imaging, seal dispensing, and hermetic seal station, among others.38 Owing to the small space in which the SHA must operate, as well as load requirements during sealing activities, the Sample Caching System "is the most complicated, most sophisticated mechanism that we have ever built, tested and readied for spaceflight."39

The combination of larger instruments, new sampling and caching system, and modified wheels makes Perseverance heavier, weighing 1,025 kg (2,260 lb) compared to Curiosity at 899 kg (1,982 lb)—a 14% increase.40

The rover's multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) has a mass of 45 kg (99 lb) and uses 4.8 kg (11 lb) of plutonium-238 oxide as its power source. The radioactive decay of plutonium-238, which has a half-life of 87.7 years, gives off heat which is converted to electricity—approximately 110 watts at launch.41 This will decrease over time as its power source decays.42 The MMRTG charges two lithium-ion rechargeable batteries which power the rover's activities, and must be recharged periodically. Unlike solar panels, the MMRTG provides engineers with significant flexibility in operating the rover's instruments even at night, during dust storms, and through winter.43

The rover's computer uses the BAE Systems RAD750 radiation-hardened single board computer based on a ruggedized PowerPC G3 microprocessor (PowerPC 750). The computer contains 128 megabytes of volatile DRAM, and runs at 133 MHz. The flight software runs on the VxWorks operating system, is written in C and is able to access 4 gigabytes of NAND non-volatile memory on a separate card.44 Perseverance relies on three antennas for telemetry, all of which are relayed through craft currently in orbit around Mars. The primary UHF antenna can send data from the rover at a maximum rate of two megabits per second.45 Two slower X-band antennas provide communications redundancy.

Instruments

NASA considered nearly 60 proposals4647 for rover instrumentation. On July 31, 2014, NASA announced the seven instruments that would make up the payload for the rover:4849

There are additional cameras and two audio microphones (the first working microphones on Mars), that will be used for engineering support during landing,67 driving, and collecting samples.6869 For a full look at Perseverance's components see Learn About the Rover.

Scientific instruments diagramCameras documenting the descent and landingCameras onboard the rover

Mars Ingenuity helicopter experiment

The Ingenuity helicopter, powered by solar-charged batteries, was sent to Mars in the same bundle with Perseverance. With a mass of 1.8 kg (4.0 lb), the helicopter demonstrated the reality of flight in the rarefied Martian atmosphere and the potential usefulness of aerial scouting for rover missions. It carried two cameras but no scientific instruments707172 and communicated with Earth via a base station onboard Perseverance.73 Its pre-launch experimental test plan was three flights in 45 days, but it far exceeded expectations and made 72 flights in nearly three years. After its first few flights, it made incrementally more ambitious ones, several of which were recorded by Perseverance's cameras. The first flight was April 19, 2021, at 07:15 UTC, with confirmation from data reception at 10:15 UTC.7475767778 It was the first powered flight by any aircraft on another planet.79 On January 18, 2024 (UTC), it made its 72nd and final flight, suffering the loss of a rotor blade (imaged, by Perseverance, lying on the sand roughly 15 m (49 ft) distant from the upright body of Ingenuity), causing NASA to retire it.8081

Location of the base radio station at PerseveranceAntenna for Ingenuity on Perseverance (view from top)Antenna for Ingenuity and the Sky camera of PerseveranceIngenuity helicopter deployed on the Martian surfaceIngenuity, days after its final Mars flight, with missing and damaged blades

Name

Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen selected the name Perseverance following a nationwide K-12 student "name the rover" contest that attracted more than 28,000 proposals. A seventh-grade student, Alexander Mather from Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, submitted the winning entry at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In addition to the honor of naming the rover, Mather and his family were invited to NASA's Kennedy Space Center to watch the rover's July 2020 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida.82

Mather wrote in his winning essay:

Curiosity. InSight. Spirit. Opportunity. If you think about it, all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans. We are always curious, and seek opportunity. We have the spirit and insight to explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond. But, if rovers are to be the qualities of us as a race, we missed the most important thing. Perseverance. We as humans evolved as creatures who could learn to adapt to any situation, no matter how harsh. We are a species of explorers, and we will meet many setbacks on the way to Mars. However, we can persevere. We, not as a nation but as humans, will not give up. The human race will always persevere into the future.83

Twin rover

JPL built a copy of the Perseverance; a twin rover used for testing and problem solving, OPTIMISM (Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars), a vehicle system test bed (VSTB). It is housed at the JPL Mars Yard and is used to test operational procedures and to aid in problem solving should any issues arise with Perseverance.84

Operational history

Further information: Timeline of Mars 2020

Mars transit

The Perseverance rover lifted off successfully on July 30, 2020, at 11:50:00 UTC aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle from Space Launch Complex 41, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida.85

The rover took 29 weeks to travel to Mars and made its landing in Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021, to begin its science phase.86

After May 17, 2022, the rover will move uphill and examine rocks on the surface for evidence of past life on Mars. On its return downhill, it will collect sample rocks to be retrieved and examined by future expeditions.87

Landing

The 6-m crater created with the impact of the 77-kg tungsten cruise mass balance device released during the EDL stage on February 18, 2021The landing site and the spacecraft debris(February 2021)Octavia E. Butler Landing Site In Jezero Crater(March 5, 2021)Variants of routes as seen in March 2021Map of Perseverance's Delta Top Campaign

The successful landing of Perseverance in Jezero Crater was announced at 20:55 UTC on February 18, 2021,88 the signal from Mars taking 11 minutes to arrive at Earth. The rover touched down at 18°26′41″N 77°27′03″E / 18.4446°N 77.4509°E / 18.4446; 77.4509,89 roughly 1 km (0.62 mi) southeast of the center of its 7.7 km × 6.6 km (4.8 mi × 4.1 mi)90 wide landing ellipse. It came down pointed almost directly to the southeast,91 with the RTG on the back of the vehicle pointing northwest. The descent stage ("sky crane"), parachute and heat shield all came to rest within 1.5 km of the rover (see satellite image). Having come within five meters (16 ft) of its target,[which?] the landing was more accurate than any previous Mars landing; a feat enabled by the experience gained from Curiosity's landing and the use of new steering technology.92

One such new technology is Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN), a technique in which the rover compares images of the surface taken during its descent with reference maps, allowing it to make last minute adjustments to its course. The rover also uses the images to select a safe landing site at the last minute, allowing it to land in relatively unhazardous terrain. This enables it to land much closer to its science objectives than previous missions, which all had to use a landing ellipse devoid of hazards.93

The landing occurred in the late afternoon, with the first images taken at 15:53:58 on the mission clock (local mean solar time).94 The landing took place shortly after Mars passed through its northern vernal equinox (Ls = 5.2°), at the start of the astronomical spring, the equivalent of the end of March on Earth.95

The parachute descent of the Perseverance rover was photographed by the HiRISE high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).96

Jezero Crater is a paleolake basin.9798 It was selected as the landing site for this mission in part because paleolake basins tend to contain perchlorates.99100 Astrobiologist Dr. Kennda Lynch's work in analog environments on Earth suggests that the composition of the crater, including the bottomset deposits accumulated from three different sources in the area, is a likely place to discover evidence of perchlorate-reducing microbes, if such bacteria are living or were formerly living on Mars.101102

A few days after landing, Perseverance released the first audio recorded on the surface of Mars, capturing the sound of Martian wind.103104

During its travels on Mars, NASA scientists had observed around Sol 341 (February 4, 2022) that a small rock had dropped into one of its wheels while the rover was studying the Máaz rock formation. The rock was visible from one of the hazard avoidance cameras, and was determined not to be harmful to the rover's mission. The rock has since stayed on Perseverance's wheel for around 427 sols (439 days) as the rover traveled over 6 miles (9.7 km) on the martian surface. NASA deemed that Perseverance had adopted a pet rock for its journey.105106107 Later, by May 2024, the rover picked up another pet rock named "Dwayne".108

Traverse

It is planned for Perseverance to visit the bottom and upper parts of the 3.4 to 3.8 billion-year-old Neretva Vallis delta, the smooth and etched parts of the Jezero Crater floor deposits interpreted as volcanic ash or aeolian airfall deposits, emplaced before the formation of the delta; the ancient shoreline covered with Transverse Aeolian Ridges (dunes) and mass wasting deposits, and finally, it is planned to climb onto the Jezero Crater rim.109

In its progressive commissioning and tests, Perseverance made its first test drive on Mars on March 4, 2021. NASA released photographs of the rover's first wheel tracks on the Martian soil.110

Perseverance's first test drive (March 4, 2021)Rover's first wheel tracksRover's first test driveRocket scour and tracks

Samples cached for the Mars sample-return mission

In support of the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return, rock, regolith (Martian soil), and atmosphere samples are being cached by Perseverance. As of October 2023, 27 out of 43 sample tubes have been filled,111 including 8 igneous rock samples, 12 sedimentary rock sample tubes, a Silica-cemented carbonate rock sample tube,112 two regolith sample tubes, an atmosphere sample tube,113 and three witness tubes.114 Before launch, 5 of the 43 tubes were designated "witness tubes" and filled with materials that would capture particulates in the ambient environment of Mars. Out of 43 tubes, 3 witness sample tubes will not be returned to Earth and will remain on rover as the sample canister will only have 30 tube slots. Further, 10 of the 43 tubes are left as backups at the Three Forks Sample Depot.115

Discoveries

In July 2024, NASA's Perseverance rover discovered "leopard spots" on a reddish rock nicknamed "Cheyava Falls" in Mars' Jezero Crater, that has some indications it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago, but further research is needed.116117

Cost

NASA plans to invest roughly US$2.75 billion in the project over 11 years, including US$2.2 billion for the development and building of the hardware, US$243 million for launch services, and US$291 million for 2.5 years of mission operations.118119

Adjusted for inflation, Perseverance is NASA's sixth-most expensive robotic planetary mission, though it is cheaper than its predecessor, Curiosity.120 Perseverance benefited from spare hardware and "build-to print" designs from the Curiosity mission, which helped reduce development costs and saved "probably tens of millions, if not 100 million dollars" according to Mars 2020 Deputy Chief Engineer Keith Comeaux.121

Commemorative artifacts

"Send Your Name to Mars"

NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign invited people from around the world to submit their names to travel aboard the agency's next rover to Mars. 10,932,295 names were submitted. The names were etched by an electron beam onto three fingernail-sized silicon chips, along with the essays of the 155 finalists in NASA's "Name the Rover" contest. The three chips share space on an anodized plate with a laser engraved graphic representing Earth, Mars, and the Sun. The rays emanating from the Sun contain the phrase "Explore As One" written in Morse code.122 The plate was then mounted on the rover on March 26, 2020.123

"Send Your Name to Mars" campaign of Mars 2020 124"Send Your Name" placard on the Perseverance rover on Earth(March 26, 2020)A sample of a souvenir boarding pass for those who registered their names to be flown aboard the Perseverance rover as part of the "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign."Send Your Name" placard now on Mars(February 28, 2021)

Geocaching in Space Trackable

Part of Perseverance's cargo is a geocaching trackable item viewable with the SHERLOC's WATSON camera.125

In 2016, NASA SHERLOC co-investigator Dr. Marc Fries — with help from his son Wyatt — was inspired by Geocaching's 2008 placement of a cache on the International Space Station to set out and try something similar with the rover mission. After floating the idea around mission management, it eventually reached NASA scientist Francis McCubbin, who would join the SHERLOC instrument team as a collaborator to move the project forward. The Geocaching inclusion was scaled-down to a trackable item that players could search for from NASA camera views and then log on to the site.126 In a manner similar to the "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign, the geocaching trackable code was carefully printed on a one-inch, polycarbonate glass disk serving as part of the rover's calibration target. It will serve as an optical target for the WATSON imager and a spectroscopic standard for the SHERLOC instrument. The disk is made of a prototype astronaut helmet visor material that will be tested for its potential use in crewed missions to Mars. Designs were approved by the mission leads at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA Public Affairs, and NASA HQ, in addition to Groundspeak Geocaching HQ.127128

Tribute to healthcare workers

Perseverance launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, which began to affect the mission planning in March 2020. To show appreciation for healthcare workers who helped during the pandemic, an 8 cm × 13 cm (3.1 in × 5.1 in) plate with a staff-and-serpent symbol (a Greek symbol of medicine) was placed on the rover. The project manager, Matt Wallace, said he hoped that future generations going to Mars would be able to appreciate healthcare workers during 2020.129

Family portrait of NASA Mars rovers

One of the external plates of Perseverance includes a simplified representation of all previous NASA Martian rovers, Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, as well as Perseverance and Ingenuity, similar to the trend of automobile window decals used to show a family's makeup.130

Parachute with coded message

The orange-and-white parachute used to land the rover on Mars contained a coded message that was deciphered by Twitter users. NASA's systems engineer Ian Clark used binary code to hide the message "dare mighty things" in the parachute color pattern. The 21-meter-wide (70 ft) parachute consisted of 80 strips of fabric that form a hemisphere-shape canopy, and each strip consisted of four pieces. Dr. Clark thus had 320 pieces with which to encode the message. He also included the GPS coordinates for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's headquarters in Pasadena, California (34°11’58” N 118°10’31” W). Clark said that only six people knew about the message before landing. The code was deciphered a few hours after the image was presented by Perseverance's team.131132133

"Dare mighty things" is a quote attributed to U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and is the unofficial motto of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.134 It adorns many of the JPL center's walls.

NASA outreach to students

In December 2021, the NASA team announced a program to students who have persevered with academic challenges. Those nominated will be rewarded with a personal message beamed back from Mars by the Perseverance rover.

Early imagesOctavia E. Butler Landing(February 2021)Smoke plume from the descent stage right after landingView from the rear right Hazard Avoidance CameraSol 213: the parachute and the backshell are laying on a ridge 2 km north from Perseverance which resides among the ripples of Séítah-SFirst color photoThe panoramic view after the first long drive on sol 14One of Perseverance's wheels Landing ellipse and further tracks of the roverAncient river system surrounding Jezero craterStart position within the landing ellipseLanding ellipse and landing siteCampaign plans for 2021–2022Mars Helicopter Route Options out of 'Séítah' with EDL hardware Ground tracksThe rover track as of sols 52–64 at Van Zyl OverlookVariants as of sol 174 (August 19, 2021)Positioning before the 2021 solar conjunctionR210 is the rover position on sol 210;H1631, H1742 and H1933 means 1st, 2nd and 3rd landing sites of Ingenuity on the Field H on sols 163, 174 and 193 respectivelyPerseverance captured by Hirise camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at Maaz formation on February 26, 2022 Reciprocal photos of Perseverance and IngenuityWright Brothers Field, April 2021Van Zyl Overlook,135 April 2021Video and audio of the 4-th Ingenuity flight, April 30, 2021Perseverance spotted by Ingenuity on its 11th flight, August 2021Rochette, September 2021 Entry-descent-landing debrisIngenuity photographed the spacecraft backshell and parachute (April 19) and other apparent EDL debris (April 3).136 Tracks of Perseverance on Ingenuity's photosApril 22, 2021. First aerial image taken by IngenuityApril 22, 2021. Second color image taken by IngenuityApril 22, 2021. Third color image taken by IngenuityJuly 5, 2021. Ingenuity flies over Perseverance tracks Panoramic 360° view from Perseverance's landing site, stitched together from more than 100 individual images.April 4, 2021 (Sol 44) at 14:02:08 local mean solar time. Ingenuity with its solar cells sprinkled with sand stands before the roverIn its third flight Ingenuity spots Perseverance (left) in the aerial photo

March 5, 2024: NASA released images of transits of the moon Deimos, the moon Phobos and the planet Mercury as viewed by the Perseverance rover on the planet Mars.

Transits viewed from Mars by the Perseverance roverTransit of Deimos(January 19, 2024)Transit of Phobos(February 8, 2024)Transit of Mercury(October 28, 2023)

Notes

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Perseverance rover. Perseverance (rover) test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

References

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