Perseverance (rover)

Perseverance is a NASA rover that has been exploring Mars since February 18, 2021, as part of the Mars 2020 mission. Built and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the car-sized rover was launched on July 30, 2020, from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas V rocket and landed in Jezero Crater, a site chosen for its ancient river delta that may preserve evidence of past microbial life. The rover's main goals are to search for signs of ancient life, study the planet's geology and climate, and collect rock and regolith samples for possible return to Earth by a future mission. Perseverance also tests technologies intended to support later human exploration, including an experiment that successfully produced oxygen from the thin carbon-dioxide atmosphere. Perseverance carries seven primary scientific instruments, 19 cameras, and two microphones. It also deployed the experimental helicopter Ingenuity, which in April 2021 performed the first powered and controlled flight on another planet. Originally intended for up to five flights, Ingenuity completed dozens of sorties before being retired in 2024. Powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, Perseverance has an expected mission duration of over a decade. It has provided high-resolution panoramas, drilled and cached samples for later retrieval, and identified rocks which may have been habitable for ancient microbial life in Jezero Crater. In July 2024, it discovered the Cheyava Falls rock containing "possible biosignature." As of 22 September 2026, Perseverance has been active on Mars for 1987 sols (2042 total days; 5 years, 216 days) since its landing.