Category: Perseverance (Rover)

Establishing Crew Exposure Limits of Martian Dust

Background Human exploration of Mars will expose crews to a persistent, fine particulate environment whose physicochemical properties and health implications remain only partly understood. Because no samples of authentic Martian airborne dust have been returned to Earth, NASA must rely on lunar dust toxicology, Martian regolith simulants, and extensive rover/lander geochemical and mineralogical datasets to […]

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Reads Record of Ancient Mars Impacts

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has uncovered evidence that a 245-foot-thick (75-meter-thick) stack of ancient rock on the rim of Jezero Crater was built by repeated asteroid impacts. Referred to as the “Broom Point member” by the rover’s science team, this sequence of layered bedrock is likely more than 3.9 billion years old, making it among […]

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Snaps Selfie in Mars’ Western Frontier 

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover recently took a self-portrait against a sweeping backdrop of ancient Martian terrain at a location the science team calls “Lac de Charmes.” Assembled from 61 individual images, the selfie shows Perseverance training its mast on a rocky outcrop on which it had just made a circular abrasion patch, with the western […]

NASA Pushes Next-Gen Mars Helicopter Rotor Blades Past Mach 1

The rotor blades that will carry NASA’s next-generation helicopters to new Martian heights broke the sound barrier during March tests at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Data from the tests, which took place in a special chamber that can simulate environmental conditions on the Red Planet, indicate that the fastest traveling part of […]

NASA’s Perseverance, Curiosity Panoramas Capture Two Sides of Mars

NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers have captured two 360-degree landscapes that highlight how the missions are revealing details of the Red Planet’s formation, watery past, and potential for life. Located 2,345 miles (3,775 kilometers) apart from each other on Mars — about the distance from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. — both rovers are exploring […]

Perseverance’s Landing

NASA’s Perseverance Rover approaches Mars in this Feb. 18, 2020, top-down still image captured by a camera on the rover’s descent stage. Perseverance is searching for signs of ancient microbial life, to advance NASA’s quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. NASA chose Jezero Crater as the landing because scientists believe the area was once […]

Perseverance’s Landing

NASA’s Perseverance Rover approaches Mars in this Feb. 18, 2020, top-down still image captured by a camera on the rover’s descent stage. Perseverance is searching for signs of ancient microbial life, to advance NASA’s quest to explore the past habitability of Mars. NASA chose Jezero Crater as the landing because scientists believe the area was once […]

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Completes First AI-Planned Drive on Mars 

The team for the six-wheeled scientist used a vision-capable AI to create a safe route over the Red Planet’s surface without the input of human route planners.  NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has completed the first drives on another world that were planned by artificial intelligence. Executed on Dec. 8 and 10, and led by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the demonstration used generative AI to create waypoints for Perseverance, a complex decision-making task typically performed manually by […]

NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Ready to Roll for Miles in Years Ahead

After nearly five years on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover has traveled almost 25 miles (40 kilometers), and the mission team has been busy testing the rover’s durability and gathering new science findings on the way to a new region nicknamed “Lac de Charmes,” where it will be searching for rocks to sample in the coming […]