pia24421.jpg The Navigation Cameras, or Navcams, aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover captured this view of the rover's deck on Feb. 20, 2021. This view provides a good look at PIXL (the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry), one of the instruments on the rover's stowed arm. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Since NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover touched down at Jezero Crater Feb. 18, mission controllers have made substantial progress as they prepare the rover for the unpaved road ahead. Mission team members from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will discuss mission “firsts” achieved so far and those to come in a media teleconference at 3:30 p.m. EST (12:30 p.m. PST) Friday, March 5.

The teleconference audio and accompanying visuals will stream live on the NASA JPL YouTube channel.

Discussing the rover’s progress will be:

• Robert Hogg, Perseverance deputy mission manager, JPL
• Anais Zarifian, Perseverance mobility test bed engineer, JPL 
• Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance deputy project scientist, JPL

To participate in the teleconference, media must provide their name and affiliation to Rexana Vizza (rexana.v.vizza@jpl.nasa.gov) no later than 1:30 p.m. EST (10:30 a.m. PST) Friday, March 5. Members of the media and public also may ask questions on social media during the teleconference using #CountdownToMars.

Since landing, NASA’s largest, most sophisticated Mars rover yet has gone through checks on every system and subsystem and sent back thousands of images from Jezero Crater. These checks will continue in the coming days, and the rover will make its first drives. Each system checkout and milestone completed marks a significant step forward as the rover prepares for surface operations. The primary mission is slated for one Martian year, or 687 Earth days.

To learn more about Perseverance, visit:

https://nasa.gov/perseverance

and

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

-end-

Press Contacts

Grey Hautaluoma / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668 / 202-358-1501
grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov  

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

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