Perseverance is the latest in a long line of Red Planet rovers to be named by school-age children, from Sojourner in 1997 to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on Mars in 2004, to Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars since 2012.
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance on the surface of the Red Planet. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.
Perseverance’s astrobiology mission includes searching for signs of past microbial life.
It also will characterize the planet’s climate and geology, and collect samples of Martian rocks and dust for a future Mars Sample Return mission to Earth, while paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.
Perseverance is based on the Curiosity rover configuration. It is car-sized, about 10 feet long (not including the arm), 9 feet wide, and 7 feet tall (about 3 m long, 2.7 m wide, and 2.2 m tall).
But at 2,260 pounds (1,025 kg), it weighs less than a compact car. In some sense, the rover parts are similar to what any living creature would need to keep it “alive” and able to explore.
Perseverance currently is undergoing final assembly and checkout at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The launch period for Perseverance opens on July 17, 2020. It’s targeted to land on Mars’ Jezero Crater a little after 3:40 p.m. EST (12:40 p.m. PST) on February 18, 2021.
The official name of the rover was announced March 5, 2020 by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia.
Zurbuchen was on hand at the school to congratulate seventh grader Alexander Mather, who submitted the winning entry to the agency’s Name the Rover essay contest, which received 28,000 entrants from K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory.
“Alex’s entry captured the spirit of exploration,” Zurbuchen said.
“Like every exploration mission before, our rover is going to face challenges, and it’s going to make amazing discoveries.”
“It’s already surmounted many obstacles to get us to the point where we are today — processing for launch.”
“Alex and his classmates are the Artemis Generation, and they’re going to be taking the next steps into space that lead to Mars. That inspiring work will always require perseverance. We can’t wait to see that nameplate on Mars.”
“This was a chance to help the agency that put humans on the Moon and will soon do it again,” Mather said.
“This Mars rover will help pave the way for human presence there and I wanted to try and help in any way I could. Refusal of the challenge was not an option.”
Along with forever being associated with the mission, Mather will also receive an invitation to travel with his family to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to witness the rover begin its journey when it launches this summer.
