At 4:50 a.m. PDT on July 30, NASA successfully launched the Perseverance rover from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Perseverance rover was launched on a ULA Atlas 541, which should carry it to the Jezero Crater on Mars where the rover will proceed to explore the landing site region for one Mars year, which is about two Earth years. The Perseverance rover was built with seven instruments, including cameras, spectrometers, environmental readers, and radars to gather soil samples to determine the possibility of ancient life on Mars. The Perseverance rover is also tasked with testing new technology, such as a autonomous terrain navigation system. The Perseverance rover is about the size of a car and has roughly the same dimensions as the Curiosity rover, although the Perseverance rover is 278 pounds heavier than Curiosity.
The Perseverance rover is set to land in the Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.
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