During the Mars Perseverance engineering and technology overview on Feb. 16, 2021, chief engineer Adam Steltzner displays a rover wheel.
During the Mars Perseverance engineering and technology overview on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, chief engineer Adam Steltzner displays a rover wheel. The Perseverance Mars rover is due to land on the Red Planet on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls