The Perseverance rover’s astrobiology mission will search for signs of ancient microbial life. It will also characterize the planet's climate and geology, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first planetary mission to collect and cache selected samples of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

JPL, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, is building and will manage operations of Perseverance for NASA. The agency's Launch Services Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management. The Mars 2020 mission with its Perseverance rover are part of America’s larger Moon to Mars exploration approach that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with sending the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis program.

For more information about the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission, go to:

http://www.nasa.gov/perseverance

For more about NASA's Moon to Mars plans, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars

-end-

Press Contacts

Alana Johnson / Grey Hautaluoma
Headquarters, Washington
202-672-4780 / 202-358-0668
alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov / grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov

DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
david.c.agle@jpl.nasa.gov

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